Death in the Zoo
by Cudabear
Summary: One day, a lemur from Madagascar joins the zoo. Soon thereafter Julien is murdered and Private is framed for it. The penguins rush to find evidence to prove Private's innocence while a much darker plan is being worked out. Skipper struggles to keep both himself and his team sane, unaware that the real killer is right under his beak and is going to strike again.
1. The Newcomer

**Chapter 1 - The Newcomer**

"Troops, rise and shine," said Skipper, opening a hatch to let the early morning sunlight penetrate deep into the concrete bunker. As the light fell onto one of three of the penguins still snoozing in their bunks, Skipper heard a groan and some shifting of his comrades in their bunks.

"Skipper, five more minutes please," he heard his tall teammate Kowalski groan.

"Men, get out of bed, I told you we had training bright and early this morning." snapped Skipper, waddling from the entrance to where the penguins were sleeping in their concrete bunks. He knew they had stayed up late the previous night watching television, even though he had warned them about the early training sessions. He noted that all three penguins argued by not getting up.

"Mutiny!" scowled Skipper. He reached over and grabbed an air horn off a nearby table. "Men, you have until the count of three to get out of bed. One. Two." Without any more of a warning Skipper pressed the button on the air horn and it emitted a loud screech. Kowalski sat up so quickly he slammed his head on the top of his bunk. Private, the smallest and most inexperienced of the penguins jumped out of bed and saluted his leader. Rico, who was nearly mute, jumped so hard he fell out of bed and landed on his stomach, forcing him to regurgitate a hammer, which he quickly swallowed before standing up. Kowalski jumped down from his bunk, rubbing his head, and stood next to Rico. Skipper finally released the air horn.

"This is what happens when we don't follow orders around here, troops," said skipper, placing his flippers on his hips. "What if we were in danger and we had to evacuate?"

"But Skippah," started the small penguin in his British accent, "That's never actually happened yet."

"I don't need any of your sass, Private," growled Skipper.

"Sorry, sir!"

"Alright men I want to see twice as much effort today. I don't care if your tired, just get something to eat and meet me up top in fifteen." As he finished he turned from his teammates and climbed the ladder outside, closing the hatch behind him and bathing the bunker in darkness once again.

"Skipper sure lets his position go to his head from time to time," stated Kowalski glumly, walking over to a bowl of fish on a table. Rico nodded his head in agreement. Private remained quite and looked at the ground, feeling embarrassed. Kowalski noticed.

"Ah, Private, don't worry. He gets that way sometimes." stated the tall penguin, putting a flipper on his shorter friend's back. Private nodded and picked up a fish.

Their training session was the same as it always was. Skipper used a stopwatch they had found a long time ago to time Kowalski, Rico, and Private as they made laps in the pool around the bunker. Skipper, of course, had the fastest time, closely followed by Rico. Then they practiced their hand to hand combat techniques. Once again, Skipper came out on top. When the session was over, all four penguins were winded although Skipper was not one to admit exhaustion. It was nearly time for the zoo to open now, and the four penguins took a rest before it was time to preform for the guests. Before any of the penguins could sit down, however, there was a knock at the hatch.

"Guys! Come check it out! There's a new lemur that was delivered to Julien's exhibit today." said an excited, brown furred otter when Private opened the hatch door and Marlene climbed inside the bunker.

"Marlene, are you aware that the zoo opens in a few minutes? Get back to your own post before Alice catches you over here!" stated Skipper firmly, waddling up behind Private.

"Skipper, you know that Alice has off on Monday and the zoo is always empty until later." Marlene said, rolling her eyes.

"She has a point," Kowalski said from halfway across the room, busy messing with his clipboard.

"Anyway, a few of the animals and I are going over there to check the new guy out. Want to come?" The otter asked.

"Please, Skippah, can we go?" asked Private, turning to Skipper.

"Sure, why not. Maybe this newcomer will be able to keep _King_ Julien out of our hair a little."

The five assembled and went into the secret passage entrance in the penguin's bunker. It led to an system of tunnels under the zoo and had a convenient entrance not far from the lemur's exhibit. The group sneaked passed a zoo employee and entered the enclosure, after meeting up with a few other of the zoo's animals.

King Julien, a tall lightly colored lemur was walking around the exhibit, showing a shorter, darker furred lemur his 'kingdom'. He had his arm wrapped around the smaller lemur's shoulders and was dragging it around like a rag doll as he moved from place to place.

"... and this, my friend, is the place of much partying and fun, my bouncey thingy!" Skipper heard Julien say, gesturing to his large, multicolored, inflatable bounce house. The smaller lemur smiled insincerely, and Skipper noticed. He saw the smile, but he could read the lemur's eyes and noticed that they wern't happy. They almost looked angry. He shrugged and figured it was just because the poor thing was being annoyed out of its mind.

"Hey, Ringtail, who's your friend?" said skipper loudly. Julien spun around and let go of the darker lemur. His eyes landed on Skipper and he began to speak.

"Hello my penguin friend! This is May-lay, and she comes from Madagascar!" The Darker lemur walked up to Skipper.

"Ignore him," it said with a sweet, female voice "the name is Maelie. Pleasure to meet you Mr...?" She extended a paw.

"Skipper. Just Skipper is fine," He shook her paw with his flipper. "and the pleasure is all mine." Now that she was closer, Skipper had a better view of her. She was tall, not as tall as Julien but taller than himself. Her body was curved and covered in soft looking dark brown fur. Her paws and the rings on her tail were a slightly lighter than the rest of her fur. Her snout looked much like Julien's, and it was easy to tell they had both come from the same place. Her eyes were a eerie deep green, and her ears were tipped with white fur.

"So you come from Madagascar like Julien?" asked Private, who was standing next to skipper.

"Yes, me and May-lay had much of the parties back on Madagascar," answered Julien, who had made his way over to the group. Mort and Maurice had also joined the group.

"So what made you come all the way here?" Private continued to question. Maelie paused for a second.

"Well Julien, Maurice, Mort and I were good friends on Madagascar, and when they left things became awful boring. So I stowed away on a ship that visited until they found me and brought me here." she explained, cheerfully.

"Well glad to have you here, Maelie! Welcome to Central Park Zoo!" said Skipper warmly.

Several minutes later, and every animal had a chance to great the new lemur. Kowalski vigorously shook Maelie's hand, while Rico's grunts of happiness made her giggle. Marlene talked about how nice it would be to have another female around. Maurice and Mort joined the group as well and introduced themselves to the newcomer. Eventually it was becoming closer to noon, and guests started to filter into the zoo. The animals returned to their own habitats to avoid being caught.

The day went like any other Monday, except for the fact that this Monday most of the guests wanted to see Maelie in the lemur habitat and the penguins received even less attention then usual. They preformed their routines for the few families that watched, and received mostly fishcakes as a reward. They were more common, but once in a while they would have real fish thrown. If the penguins were lucky, someone would toss popcorn when a zoo employee wasn't looking.

That night, the penguins were gathered around their television set watching some nature documentary on a jungle in Africa. It entertained everyone except Kowalski, who preferred to read and write things on his clipboard.

"So, what do you think of Maelie?" Skipper asked when the documentary was over.

"She seems nicer than any of the other lemurs by far," private answered, "except maybe Mort.

"I like her. She is a very intellectual and highly educated being!" said Kowalski, smiling. Rico nodded in agreement.

"I'm just glad she's already a good friend of Julien's. Now he has someone to bug other than us." stated skipper, making his way over to his bunk. "Alright men, lights out."

"Aye, aye, Skippah!" Private said, turning off the TV.


	2. The Party

**Chapter 2 - The Party**

The rest of the week went by like pretty much any other week for the penguins. They did their morning training sessions in order to stay in top condition. Every day they then entertained the guests by being 'cute and cuddly' as skipper liked to call it. They then were thrown their fishcakes (which they in turn threw at Alice) and the rare fish to munch on. Most of the guests were more interested in the new lemur, but that didn't stop the penguins from drawing _ooh_s and _aah_s from their happy observers.

The penguins didn't see much of the new lemur Maelie, she was always in the lemur exhibit, which Skipper didn't specifically like to go to. Julien, Maurice and Mort stopped by the Penguin's bunker once but he said that Maelie didn't want to come. Skipper began to think that she was more drawn back than he originally thought, but he also knew it might be just because she wanted some time away from Julien. He couldn't blame her for that. On Friday night, Julien and Maurice came by the penguins bunker.

"Hello my party people!" he said, after coming even against Skipper's will.

"What do you want, lower mammal?" staid the penguin, his fins on his hips. Maurice cleared his throat.

"You are hereby invited to King Julien's big reunion bash. Tonight after the zoo employees go home." he explained.

"We are going to party like we did back on Madagascar! We'll do the conga-ga and limbo and party all night!" Julien said excitedly, throwing his arms up. Skipper moved one flipper to his chin and thought for a minute while Julien stared at him.

"Skippah, can we please go to Julien's party?" said Private who had joined the group moments before. He was now looking at Skipper with a look on his face that read '_please?_'. Skipper heard Rico grunt, and then looked to see him with a fish in his mouth nodding his head vigorously.

"Alright, I suppose we can go to the party. Scheduled HQ maintenance has been finished for this week, and you troops have been training hard." said skipper, smiling.

"Oh goody!" shouted Kowalski, jumping up from where he was sitting across the room. Everyone looked at him. "I mean, uh, it sounds like a most enjoyable experience.

"Alright then," Maurice said, "we'll see you in a few hours."

"Bring some snacks, because without snacks it won't be a party!" said Julien, who was still excited. The lemurs then made their way out through the secret passageway, which really was no longer a secret.

Skipper knew that letting his troops go out to Julien's party was probably not the best decision he could have made as a leader. But, he knew that he had been hard on them all, especially Private, over last week. He knew they had been working hard and they deserved to unwind a little. The Headquarters was looking spotless and his men were in peak condition. So, how could one little night hurt?

In a few hours time, the entire gang was down at the lemur's habitat having a good time. Julien was blasting his favorite party music from his boom box, and sitting on his throne tapping his foot to the music. He, of course, forced Mort and Maurice to continue dancing even though he took a break. Private and Marlene were bouncing in Julien's bounce house, and Marlene couldn't stop giggling at how Private couldn't keep his balance due to his short legs.

Rico was busy attacking a buffet table that had been laid out for the guests. The chimps and the penguins had raided a snack machine outside Alice's office and bags of Dorritos and Snicker's bars lay on the table. Not surprisingly, the chimps left the scene as soon as Julien attempted to do the Conga. Kowalski was dancing, or at least trying to dance, with some other animals in a clearing just below Julien's throne. Skipper could tell he had had way too much candy.

Skipper himself was leaning up against a rock just outside where the animals were dancing. He was enjoying watching the rest of the party unfold and the other animals enjoying themselves. It wasn't for quite a while that he noticed that the new lemur had been missing since the beginning of the party. He didn't make too much of it though, he probally just could not spot her in the crowd.

Meanwhile, Private fell out of the bounce house and was too tired to climb back in again. Marlene continued jumping up and down and he leaned up against a rock close to Julien's throne. He looked down on the animals having a good time, but he noticed he could not spot the new lemur Maelie. Curious, he climbed up the rock.

"Hey Julien, where's Maelie?" he asked the nearby Julien.

"What?" he said, cupping a hand close to his ear. The music was too loud for him to hear Private speak.

"Maelie. Where is she?" the small penguin shouted.

"Oh why did you not say so?" he responded, also shouting. "She said she was going be using the restroom." Private nodded and hopped off the rock. He figured he'd check up on her. Who takes more than an hour to go pee anyway?

Private made his way around Julien's rock and headed to the place where the lemurs had designated a restroom. On the way, he saw a table full of different fruits and snacks. That was probally where Maurice had prepared the snacks that were being devoured by Rico. Also, he saw a dark figure on one end of the table.

"Maelie?" He said, and the figure at the end of the table jumped.

"Yes?" she said. She looked like she was fumbling with something awfully fast.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to spook you," Private said calmly, moving closer, "I was just worried that something was wrong. You have been gone for a while now."

"Don't come any closer!" gasped Maelie, sounding tense. She scrambled to put items she had on the table into a bag.

"Why not?" said the penguin, continuing to move closer. "Is everything alright?" He was now close enough to see some of the items on the table. There were the fruits and candy for the party of course, but he noticed some things in front of Maelie before she scooped them into a bag. There was a vial of dark liquid, which was hard to see in the faint light. There was a bottle, but Private couldn't read what it said on the label before Maelie scooped it into her bag.

"What's all this then?" He asked, inquisitive. "If it's a science experiment, K'walski can help you with that."

"Yeah, that's what it is," the mysterious lemur said, "Just a science experiment." Private continued to look at the objects on the table. There was a glint that caught his eye.

"What's this thing?" He said pointing to an item. It was shiny and in an L-shape, and it glinted in the faint party light. He thought he had seen one before on television, but he wasn't sure.

"That's, a.-a..." Maelie stuttered. Private suddenly realized what the object was.

"Oh wow, is that a gu..." His words trailed off as he was slammed over the head with a blunt object and knocked completely unconscious.

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN  
**Sorry for king Julien's speech parts :p it's the best I could come up with. I'm pretty bad at personalizing quotes, but I hope you're enjoying the story so far at least =)


	3. Death in the Zoo

**Chapter 3 - Death in the Zoo**

A few more hours passed, and Skipper was still stitting in the same place he had been sitting since the beginning of the party. Being a little antisocial, he didn't want to get into the party. He noticed Rico was done stuffing his face and was now sliding around the dance floor on his belly. Skipper chuckled. Marlene was sitting on top of the rock by Julien, smiling and looking down. Everyone else was tuckered out and sitting down or talking. Julien himself had taken another seat in his throne and even aloud poor Mort and Maurice to have a break as well. He hadn't seen private for a while, but he assumed that the young penguin was just resting somewhere.

Skipper noticed suddenly that a dark figure moved up behind Julien, but the lemur king did not notice because of the loud music. Skipper couldn't make out who it was because of a shadow cast by Julien's throne, but he could see the figure pour something into Julien's coconut drink cup, which was sitting on a small table next to him. Julien soon took a drink and the dark figure moved away. Suddenly, Skipper's paranoia kicked in.

"Julien!" He shouted, although he knew the lemur would not be able to see him. The penguin jumped up and slid on his belly over to the large rock. He jumped up as fast as he could, climbing flipper over foot at the fastest rate his body would allow him to. "Julien!" he shouted again. When he reached the top, he slid over to Julien and slapped the cup out of the lemur's hand.

"Just what do you think are you doing?" the lemur king said, looking angry.

"I have reason to believe someone poisoned your drink!" Skipper shouted between breaths. "There was someone behind you and they poured something into it!"

"Silly penguin, that was your friend the tall one," he explained over the music, looking a little more cheerful. "He said he was giving me some kingly brew to try that May-Lay had made for me. Recipe from Madagascar, I am thinking." Sure enough, Kowalski stepped out from behind the throne with a bottle in his hands. It was unlabeled but Skipper could tell there had been a label on it at one point.

"Oh wow, Skipper!" the tall penguin said, enthusiastically, "You have to try this Madagascar stuff! It is absolutely dee-licious!"

"I'll pass. No more candy for you tonight, soldier."

"Sir, yes, Sir!" Kowalski returned, giggling. Meanwhile, Julien had downed his coconut cup of the strange liquid. Skipper returned to the spot where he had been sitting and looked up. The sky, which was clear at the beginning of the night, was now clouding over. He saw a flash of lighting from far away. Sure enough, a few minutes later, it began to sprinkle and then downpour. The Animals who were afraid to get wet scattered, including Maurice and Mort. Skipper and the penguins were used to it, and so was Marlene. He noticed Julien was still sitting in his throne despite the rain. Figuring it was time to go, he made his way over and collected Rico from where he was sliding around, although now he was covered in mud. The two them climbed the rock and found Kowalski giggling with King Julien.

"Kowalski, lets get out of here," Skipper said to him after turning off the stereo. He shielded his face from the rain and "Where's Private?" Both penguins shrugged.

"I bet he's off taking a dump!" said Kowalski, laughing. Skipper disregarded the statement.

"You two head back to headquarters, I'll get Private and head back." Rico nodded and Kowalski continued laughing. Rico grabbed his flipper and headed for the secret passageway.

Skipper watched his two teammates slide quickly away until they were out of sight. Then he looked over at Julien who was sitting back in his seat looking up with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

"Isn't it amazing when the sky spirits are crying?" He said suddenly.

"Julien, you should head into shelter, this storm is getting bad." shouted Skipper over a crack of thunder.

"No!" Julien said back. Leaning forward on his chair and opening his eyes wide. The penguin could see that his eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were dilated. "If I go into the housey thingy Mort will beat me up!"

"Good Lord, man, are you alright?" Skipper said, looking at Julien's eyes.

"Do not bother me with such pointless questions, silly penguin." He muttered, almost too quietly for Skipper to hear.

"Whatever. Do you know where Private is?" asked the penguin.

"What? Why are you wanting to see my privates?" gasped Julien, taken aback. Skipper shook his head in frustration.

"Skipper!" said a familiar female voice. Skipper glanced to his left to see the dark figure of Maelie standing not far from him.

"Ah finally someone who's sane. Do you know where Private is?"

"I d-don't know, but I think he may have r-ran into shelter with Maurice and M-Mort." she stuttered.

"Why all the stuttering mammal? You look very uneasy." Skipper inquired. The lemur looked awfully uneasy and nervous. She jumped when a crack of thunder sounded.

"I'm cold, and I am not very fond of thunderstorms." she responded quickly, although her voice no longer trembled. "You should get headed to shelter."

To this skipper said, "Not without private, Leave no man behind."

"Its quite alright, he's hiding with Mort. Says he's afraid of thunderstorms." Skipper never remembered Private being afraid of thunderstorms, he had weathered many. He noted how Maelie looked uneasy at first but now it seemed like she was rushing to get rid of him. Skipper became suspicious instantly, and arched his brow.

"OK, you win. Send him home as soon as the rain stops. I'll be waiting." He said, and then pretended to start to walk away. As soon as he had descended the rock, he hid underneath the cliff and tried to listen to what was happening up top, although it was of no use. The rain pouring down was too much of a din, so instead he positioned himself in a way so he could see what was going on, but he could not be seen.

He saw Maelie walk over to Julien and grab his arm. She tried to pull him up, but Julien just fell down again on purpose. He could see the king lemur laugh hysterically and roll on the ground. Maelie frowned and walked up to Julien. She didn't look like she was playing games anymore. She grabbed him again, forcing him to stand up. Skipper noticed she was mouthing some words, but he couldn't understand a single word. Oh how he wished he was close enough to hear! Maelie then took the king lemur by the hand and walked down the less steep ramp, and skipper made sure to keep a visual on them. He didn't like this Maelie character anymore.

_What is she doing? They're going away from the lemur's shelter!_ Skipper thought to himself. The two lemurs ventured into a grouping of bushes in a corner of the enclosure. Suddenly he understood, and he chuckled and shook his head. The two lemurs were simply in love and were about to have a fun night. Although skipper didn't see how a violent thunderstorm would be romantic, but he didn't care. He was just glad that Julien had found someone other then him to spend his time around.

Then, he realized how wrong it would be to spy on them in their most personal moment, so he took Maelie's advice and made his way towards the secret passage. He would leave Private there to wait out the storm. It wasn't until he was almost to the passage that he heard it.

It was a loud pop, quite like one of those cork guns that children bring and pretend to shoot at the penguins while they preform. Although this was much louder, and over the sound of the storm, it had to have been considerably loud. It sounded more like some sort of a small explosion when he thought about it. He wondered for a second what could make that noise, but decided he would sort it out later. The wind was picking up and the storm was becoming fierce. He slid to the shelter of the secret passage and made his way back to HQ.

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~ AN  
**by now you've probally realized that I'm not the best of writers :P. I'm writing for a genre thats new for me, so bare with me. I'm trying to learn and make it better, so please review!


	4. The Murder Scene

Just as a little forwarning, this chapter might be a little disturbing. Read on at your own risk.

**AN ~~~~~~ AN**

**Chapter 4 - Evidence**

Skipper slowly cracked open his eyes and looked at his surroundings. First of all he noticed that he was sore and still felt very tired. He noticed that he was sitting in a chair inside headquarters, and he was facing the secret entrance. He turned his head to see three sleeping penguins in their concrete bunks. He let out a sigh of relief, then stretched out his flippers and legs.

He remembered the previous night at this point. He had returned home after Maelie had said that she would send Private back to HQ when the storm died down. He returned to find both Rico and Kowalski passed out in their beds. Figuring they were very tired, he grabbed a chair and sat in front of the secret entrance waiting for private to return. He must have dozed off sometime late during the night, and private must have came shortly after he fell asleep. He shook his head and smiled, wondering what time it was. That sure was some crazy party the previous night.

Skipper walked over to the hatch and popped it open. The sun was shining but the Zoo was empty, so it was before open.

"Rise and Shine, troops," said skipper, still looking outside, "The zoo opens soon." He heard a groan come from Kowalski and had a strange sense of Deja-Vu. Instead of grabbing his air horn, he walked over to his sleeping friends and nudged Kowalski's shoulder. The penguin groaned again and rolled over.

"Skipper?" he moaned, "Wha-a happened?"

"You went crazy after eating too much candy at Julien's party, soldier." explained Skipper, looking into the penguin's eyes. They looked bloodshot and tired, much like Julien's had the previous night.

"I did? Oh, how embarrassing," he said. "I don't feel so good."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know. My body aches, I'm nauseous and my head is pounding." Skipper put a flipper on his forehead, it felt warm. He knew his teammate truly was not feeling well.

"Did you have too much candy, soldier?"

"I've had more candy than I've had last night. It never made me feel this way the next morning." Kowalski responded.

"Alright, you stay in bed." said Skipper, patting Kowalski's shoulder. Then he looked down at private, who was rolled over facing away from Skipper and curled up tightly. Rico was sprawled out in his bunk, which was usual for the heavy penguin. Skipper thought about waking them up, but he knew it was a late knight and he himself was tired. He figured the team could pass on training today.

Skipper began to walk across the HQ to get something to eat, when suddenly the door to the secret passageway burst open and a stumbling fur ball fell through. The sound woke up Rico, who jumped out of bed and assumed a combat position.

"At ease, soldier. It's only Mort." said Skipper, holding up a hand to stop Rico from pummeling the poor little lemur. Rico looked confused.

"Skipper!" screamed the small puffball. When he looked up at Skipper, the penguin noticed that his big eyes were puffy and red, and the fur beneath them was matted with tears.

"What is it, lower mammal?" said skipper, as Mort hysterically sobbed on the floor.

"Skipper! It's King J-Julien!" Mort said between sops. The small lemur walked over and fell onto skipper, who grabbed him to keep him from falling.

"Whats wrong with Ringtail?"

"H-He's d-de..." Mort choked on his words as he attempted to say them. "Skipper! K-King Julien is d-dead!" The lemur fell to floor, seeming to loose all the strength he had in his limbs. Skipper gasped and froze. Rico seemed to do the same, his scarred face showing an expression of shock. Skipper wanted to say _Ok, so Ringtail wants to play a little trick on us does he?_ But he cought the words before it left his mouth. He had seen Mort cry before, but he had never seen the lemur sob to this extent.

"What's all the hubbub, Skippah?" said a young penguin who walked up behind Skipper. Private must have awoke at the loud sound of Mort stumbling in.

"Little Ring tail here says King Julien is dead." Skipper said, without looking. His eyes were focused on the convulsing lemur in front of him. "Mort! Are you sure?"

"Y-Yes! I saw his body and the b-blood and his eyes were so empty!" He explained, looking back up at Skipper. Skipper then turned to look at private when he gasped and noticed something strange. He had a decent gash on the side of his head, and there was dried blood staining his white feathers dark red. The ends of his flippers were also stained dark red. All over his feathers were rumpled and dirty.

"Good Lord, Private! What happened to you?" Skipper said to the unaware Private.

"What's wrong, Skippah?"

"Go look in the mirror, soldier." Private obeyed, and upon seeing himself, he freaked out. Skipper said, "How did this happen? Tell me what happened to you last night!"

"I-I don't know Skippah. I went to look for Maelie when she went missing. I found her tinkering with some items, and before I knew it, everything went dark!" the short penguin explained. Skipper rubbed his chin. "Maybe I passed out and hit my head on a rock, sir."

"I don't know. These things just don't add up. Go get cleaned up and we'll go investigate." Skipper responded to his younger friend.

"Aye, aye!"

A few minutes later, Skipper was on his way to the lemur's habitat. Rico, Private, and a still trembling Mort joined him. They had managed to calm down Mort and Rico had wrapped Private's head with some bandages.

On the way Skipper noticed muddy footprints that looked like a penguin's on the floor in the passageway heading towards thier hideout. There were also several streaks of dried blood staining the sides of the passage. He thought about it, but then assumed it was just Private coming back, stumbling, after getting that gash on his head. Kowalski remained in bed, feeling to sick to join the group.

When they reached the Lemur's enclosure, Maurice was waiting for them. His eyes looked as normal as they always were, no sign that he had been crying. Skipper noticed he looked content and undisturbed. Marlene stood next to him, her face looking stunned and her eyes pointed at the ground.

"Is this all really true?" Private said to the short, round lemur when they approached him.

"I'm afraid it is," Maurice responded dimly. "He is over there, in the bushes." The lemur pointed twoards a group of bushes that Skipper faintly recognized, but he was not sure because there were many similar bushes in the enclosure.

"Hey, where's Maelie?" Skipper asked, noticing that the dark furred lemur was once again missing from the group.

"After she saw King Julien's body, she ran off crying. We haven't been able to find her since then." explained Maurice.

"I can't believe he's gone," mumbled Marlene in disbelief.

"Well we're not accomplishing anything standing here. Let's go see Julien." said the penguin. There was a lot of tension in the air as the walked over to the bushes where Julien supposedly lay. Before they got close enough to see, Private spoke up.

"Maurice, do you know how he passed?"

"No clue. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural though. There is too much blood for it to be illness or something." he explained, eyes focused on the bush they were about to go into.

"Guys, I'm going to stay outside. I can't bare to look at him again." Marlene said, looking at the ground. Mort was close by her side, and it didn't look like he wanted to venture into the bushes either. Skipper walked up to the otter and placed a flipper on her shoulder.

"Alright, soldier, take Mort with you and try to find Maelie for me, OK?" To this, Marlene nodded. Skipper turned to Private. "Would you like to stay outside as well?"

The young penguin paused, and then said, "Yes, Skippah. I want to see what happened to King Julien." Skipper nodded, then turned back to Maurice. The remaining group members then proceeded into the shadows underneath the bush.

Before skipper could even see anything, he noticed a rotten stench. It wasn't much unlike the smell that emits when fish is left out too long, but it was much, much worse. It made his eyes begin to water and his stomach do flips. The entire area was filled with the smell of death.

They reached a clearing in the middle of the shrubs, and right away Skipper saw a familiar figure sprawled out on the ground.

"So it really is t-true," coughed skipper, fighting the want to vomit. Rico wasn't as strong, and he quickly hunched over and several items tumbled onto the ground in front of him. Private put his flippers to his mouth and looked like he was about to do the same. Rico continued heaving although nothing else came up.

It wasn't so much the sight of seeing a corpse that was so nausiating, It was the sight of seeing a lifeless friend dead before you. Skipper knew that seeing their friend dead was nearly too much for himself to take. He found himself speechless and a tight knot was forming in his throat as he fought back tears.

The lemur king was sprawled out as if he had just fallen and never gotten back up. He was flat on his back and his face was staring up twoards the sky. His eyes were open, and the pupils in them looked dark and lifeless. His mouth was open a crack and flies were buzzing in and out of it. Skipper's eyes moved to the small mammal's chest, where once white and gray recently groomed fur had been been stained a deep, dark red.

The penguin noticed two gaping holes in the lemurs chest, and more flies were buzzing around them.

The grass around the area was trampled and some branches were broken off the shrubs. Skipper could find pebbles and blades of grass that were covered in red. Julien's fur was matted as well, and looking at his left arm, Skipper could tell it had been broken. What really caught Skipper's eye was a long, curved crowbar clutched in his other hand. Maurice broke the silence that had ensued until now.

"Mort found him this morning when he went to use the restroom." he explained.

"Oh the poor thing," said private quietly.

"As you can tell, this was no natural death. I don't think it was even an accident of any sort," Maurice continued. Skipper walked around the body, trying to keep his cool, and approached the crowbar. It was dented like it was used to hit something fairly hard, and it had a bit of dried blood on the end.

"This crowbar might have been used as a defensive weapon," Skipper commented, eyes locked on the curved metal. "Which means he was attacked."

"That's what I was thinking," Maurice responded.

"And all this disturbance around this area... there was obviously a struggle," continued the leader Penguin. He had watched late night crime dramas on the penguin's Television, and recognized some of the signs that the famous detectives used to draw conclusions. Kowalski knew a lot more about those shows, but he was not here right now to help. Skippers eyes moved from the crowbar up to the lemurs chest.

"These wounds look like bullet holes," he said, pointing a flipper to the two gaping holes.

"What's a bullet, Skippah?" asked Private quietly.

"They're projectiles that are fired from guns." explained Skipper. He had not let Private watch much TV that involved firearms. "I can't believe it..."

"I believe it! Our beloved Julien was murdered!" Maurice said loudly, causing Rico to gasp. He was still hunched over on the ground, his random items in front of him.

"I hate to say it but you're right lower mammal," Skipper agreed. "But who would do such a thing?"

"I have a theory," said a female voice behind Skipper, who turned to see the elusive dark furred lemur. Her eyes were puffy and her face looked drained, an obvious sign that she had been crying as hard as Mort was. She had some black feathers in her hand.

"Nice of you to join us, Maelie," said Maurice.

"Thank you. I have reason to believe the animal who killed King Julien is with us right now." she explained, eyes pointing to each of the penguins and Maurice in succession. Rico gasped again.

"Who?" shouted Skipper, jumping up.

"Private!" she hissed, pointing at the young penguin.

"Me?" Private responded, taken aback.

"Yes you. I found these right here," she said, holding up the black feathers she had brought. Skipper recognized them as penguin feathers. His beak dropped wide open when he saw a few more feathers scattered around the area that he didn't notice before. "And last time I checked, you are missing some of yours, Private."

All eyes pointed to the penguins small body, and sure enough, he was missing several small patches of feathers. Skipper had not noticed the missing feathers until now.

"Julien must have pulled them out during the struggle!" assumed Maurice.

"I concur," said the other lemur.

"That's preposterous, mammal! There are other birds in this Zoo with black feathers." argued Skipper for Private's sake.

"I thought that too, and I was about to let it go. That was until I came here and noticed that your head is wrapped in bloodstained bandages, Private." she explained, her face growing dark. Maurice's eyes changed between Private and the crowbar Julien was clutching on to several times.

"I passed out during the party and fell!" explained Private desperately. Skipper couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. At least, he wanted to not be able to believe.

"Obviously poor Julien was trying to defend himself and he landed a good hit on you," Maelie sneered. Maurice took a step back from Private and skipper walked back around the body to stand next to the other penguins.

"All of the animals in this zoo have blood flowing through their veins, Maelie." argued Skipper again.

"Yes, but name one who has a new gash the size of Private's." she shot back quickly, glaring at the penguin leader. Maurice did the same.

"Isn't it a little early to be throwing accusations around?" said Private in his own defense.

"I suppose so, but the evidence is stacked high against you." said Maurice.

"_Gun-s-shot_," said a raspy voice that could only be Rico.

"Rico's right. Julien died of Gunshot wounds," concurred Skipper. "How in the world would Private get his hands on a gun? Us penguins disregard firearms as a form of weaponry, mainly because they're too big for us to hold.

"That's the last piece of the puzzle," said Maelie, more softly and with more anger than before. "But when I find that evidence, so help me, I'll have Joey feed you to the alligators!" Skipper could sense Private shiver.

"I know you're hurt Maelie, but why in the world would you accuse Private of killing Julien? He's the nicest guy around this place." said Skipper.

"I don't know what his twisted little mind is up to," she shot back. Skipper could tell that she was faking how angry she was sounding.

"Don't fight over King Julien's corpse. Ever hear about respecting the dead?" said Maurice loudly. "We need to get him out of here so we can give him a proper burial."

"Agreed, mammal." said skipper. Rico, Skipper and Maurice then lifted Julien's body up and slowly carried out of the bush. Skipper noticed when they picked up the body Julien's hand went limp and the crowbar fell out of it. He had heard on those crime dramas that sometimes the muscles in people's hands tensed up so tight that nobody could pry it open. The shows he had watched involved people holding important items, and he remembers the detectives using it to tell if the victim was holding an item or not when they died. It made Skipper suspicious.

**AN ~~~~~ AN**

Sorry for the lenthiness of this chapter, and also it was primarily speech so it was probally boring, nonetheless I hope you're enjoying it! Please Respond!


	5. Julien's Funeral

**Chapter 5 - Julien's Funeral**

Several hours later, they had moved Julien's body over to a shady corner of the lemur exhibit, one that would not be visible to guests and zookeepers. Rico dug a hole to fit Julien's tall frame with a shovel he had coughed up earlier. The zoo was open by this point and families began strolling the park, some wondering where the animals were. Alice was going crazy wondering where the animals were, not knowing that they were all grouped in the lemur habitat.

The penguins had lowered Julien into the grave Rico dug and a nice collection of animals were standing around, most of them looking shocked and upset. Kowalski had gained the strength since the morning to venture from his bed and join the other three penguins as the stood quietly by the chimps and Marlene. Maelie had her eyes focused on the grave and looked the same as she had earlier. Every once in a while she glared at Private, who looked at the ground every time she did.

"We are gathered here today to honor a... to honor a friend." said Skipper solemnly. Marlene nodded.

"Does anyone want to say a few words?" Maurice asked. All of the animals present then took their turns in saying something about the deceased king. The chimps said that they knew Julien as annoying but the zoo would never be the same without him. Marlene reminisced on the the times she and Julien had spent together, from when they tried to win the webcam competition together, to all of Julien's parties. Mort began to speak but when he started talking about Julien's feet he began sobbing again, and Maelie walked over to comfort him. Maurice had the longest speech. His speech was about the experiences the two lemurs had on Madagascar before they came to the zoo. Private opened his mouth to speak, but he quickly shut it when Maelie and Maurice both shot him dirty looks.

"Julien was certainly one of a kind," Skipper said after a moment of silence, "and the zoo won't be the same without him."

"Agreed. He will be missed." Kowalski responded, speaking up for the first time. After hugs and comforts were passed around, everyone returned to their own habitats. Rico filled Julien's grave with while Skipper saluted the lemur.

"I swear on my life," Maelie said to Private after everyone except her and the penguins had left. "I will make sure every animal in this zoo hates you for what you've done."

"But Private didn't do anything, lemur!" defended Skipper. Maelie disregarded the statement and walked away. Private looked at Skipper uneasily.

"Skipper, why does she hate me so much?" said the young penguin.

"It's because she believes you killed her friend, Soldier." responded Skipper, making Kowalski ask why she thought that. Skipper explained what had happened earlier and how they believed Julien was murdered. He also explained how the female lemur was so certain it was Private based on two pieces of evidence.

"I _was _wondering where you got that wound, Private." said Kowalski when Skipper had finished.

"I was wondering that myself, really." responded the younger penguin.

"Well. We still don't really know what went on last night during that party," said Skipper. "Lets head back to HQ and see if we can get this all sorted out." The penguin's nodded and they walked away from the shady corner of the habitat.

On the way back to the secret passage, the penguins walked by the group of bushes where Julien's body was found. Skipper glanced back over to the bushes, and he noticed something that he had not noticed originally. Now that he was looking at the grouping from the same angle he had the previous night, the leader penguin realized that it was the same location that he had seen Julien and Maelie retreat to during the storm. He also remembered the loud pop he had heard. Suddenly, he realized who the real murderer might be.

"Kowalski," said Skipper suddenly, stopping in his tracks.

"What is it, Skipper?" responded the tall penguin. He still looked feeble and very tired.

"Do you mind taking a look at the murder scene for me? I want to know if you can see anything that we missed when we were there."

"Uh--sure, Skipper." Kowalski said. Private and Rico waited outside the bushes while Skipper and Kowalski ventured in. To Skipper's relief, the area had not changed at all since they had previously been there, except for the fact that Julien's body was now gone. The crowbar that had rolled out of the lemur's paw as the penguins carried him away was now lying in the middle of the clearing, the sun glinting off of its shiny surface.

Kowalski walked around the area, taking note of every little detail. He picked up a few random items, including a stick and a rock. He tapped the base of one of the larger bushes, and Skipper noticed that he was pointing out a small, round hole. Skipper gave his intelligent friend a few minutes, and then spoke.

"Got anything?"

"You said that Julien was shot, right?" Kowalski inquired, eyes still scanning the clearing.

"Yes."

"Where was he when you first got here?" asked the taller penguin, now looking at Skipper. Skipper pointed to the spot where the lemur king was lying. "Was he flat on his back?" Skipper nodded.

"Well then I can say that Julien was not shot." concluded the investigative penguin. Skipper's eyes grew wide.

"What? You saw his wounds yourself, soldier!" Skipper argued.

Kowalski paused for a minute, and then said, "Yes, they looked much like gunshot wounds."

"So what would make you say that he wasn't shot?"

"There's almost no blood underneath where you said he was lying." Kowalski explained, extending a flipper to the spot where the grass was still pressed down. Skipper tilted his head in confusion, and Kowalski continued, "That means that there was no exit wound, because he would have bled out through them onto the grass." Skipper hadn't thought to check for more proof that Julien had been shot. He didn't bother to check for any sort of exit wound.

"That doesn't mean that the bullets didn't just get stopped in the poor lemur's body," Skipper returned.

"Skipper, you have watched those crime shows with me. You saw how most bullets left exit wounds on full grown humans. Do you think that Julien's small frame would have been able to stop a bullet any better than a human?" As the other penguin spoke, he walked back over to skipper.

"No, not at all."

"So, Julien was either shot with something much weaker—or he might not have been shot at all." concluded Kowalski. Skipper nodded, it made sense.

"Do you have any idea what it was, then?" asked the leader penguin.

"I have a theory," Kowalski paused, "but you might not want to hear it."

"Let it out!"  
"Alright, come over here," beckoned the taller penguin, walking over to the thick base of the bush he had been examining before. "Look at this hole."

"It looks just like Julien's wounds did!" observed Skipper.

"Yes, but look what I found embedded inside!" Kowalski said while holding out his flipper. On it was a very tiny, rounded ball. Skipper gasped, and his heart sunk. He knew exactly where that had come from.

"No!" he exclaimed.

"I'm afraid so," said Kowalski solemnly.

"But nobody knows about that weapon except us! It's a closely guarded secret!"

"Which doesn't really help out Private, I'm afraid." the taller of the two said, facing the ground. "But I have some good news too."

"Good." Skipper said.

"Look what I found stuck on this stick." Kowalski said, showing Skipper the stick he had picked up earlier. Skipper noticed several, very dark brown threads of fur that had weaved themselves between pieces of bark on the twig, causing Skipper to gasp again.

"Maelie's fur?" he asked.

"I hope so. This would prove that Maelie was at the scene as well as private." said Kowalski.

"And what about that rock?"

"I picked it up because it has some blood on it, and I wanted to compare it to the blood on the crowbar." explained the taller penguin, waddling over to the crowbar that was still on the grass. He leaned over next to it, and glanced between the rock and the bloodied tip. "Aha!" he finally exclaimed.

"What?" asked the leader penguin curiously.

"I saw Private's wound. When you told me about how the tip of the crowbar was the only thing with blood on it, I wondered. Private's wound looks much more like he was struck with a crushing blow, and the force caused his skin to split on his brow, not a puncture wound that would have been caused by the end of that." Kowalski explained, "Private was hit with this rock, not with the crowbar."

"How do you know that it isn't Julien's blood on that rock?" asked Skipper, arching his brow.

"I found it too far away from where you said his body was. It is way too much blood to have been splattered from a distance."

"Excellent detective work, soldier! Bravo!" complimented the leader penguin.

"Thanks, Skipper. I just want to prove Private is innocent to the extent you do." stated Kowalski. He held the rock, stick, and small metal sphere he had found in his flipper and the two preceded to meet with the other two penguins and tell them what they had found. Rico and Private were both equally surprised, and the four penguins made their way back to their HQ.

Alice was relieved when she saw the four appear on the surface of the bunker, but the penguins did little to entertain the guests. Skipper was emotionally drained from the day's events and had little appetite for fish, let alone fishcakes. He was sure his teammates felt the same way, so they spent the rest of the day stuffed up inside of the bunker trying to draw conclusions from what evidence they had and figure out what had happened the previous night.


	6. Figuring things out

**Chapter 6 - Figuring things out**

"You don't think I killed Julien, do you, guys?" Private said, breaking a long silence. The team had been quiet since they returned. The air inside the bunker held a feeling of depression.

"Not at all, soldier," Skipper reassured. The other two penguins stayed quiet. "As long as you're up to talking we should figure out what happened last night." He said. The four went over to a small table they had set up for playing chess or cards on and each took a seat. Kowalski set the three items he had obtained at Julien's murder scene on the table and each penguin looked at the others uncomfortably.

"Where should we begin?" started Kowalski. Skipper turned to the youngest penguin.

"Tell me everything you remember, Private." he said. Private then told the story of what he had seen at the party. He had fallen out of the lemur's bounce house and then noticed that Maelie had been missing for a while. He spoke of asking King Julien where she was, and upon finding out he went to go look for the female lemur. The young penguin said it was fuzzy from that point on, but he remembered seeing Maelie at the table in the back. He recalled seeing some times placed on that table, but he couldn't describe any of them. After that, he had blacked out.

"That must have been when you were hit with this rock," Kowalski assumed.

"Yes, but the question is how. Was it thrown, used as a club or was it an accident? If it wasn't an accident, who exactly knocked you out?" wondered Skipper.

"_Mai-Lae_," grunted Rico.

"I can't say for sure, but I don't remember Maelie swinging anything at me before I went unconscious.

"That's troublesome," noted Skipper, "because she's the only other one with evidence against them. Although it may be very little, it's our only lead."

"Do you remember anything afterwards?" Kowalski asked Private.

"Not a thing. Next thing I remember is waking up here." explained Private.

"What about you Kowalski? What happened to you last night?" Skipper asked his taller friend.

"I'm not exactly sure, Skipper," he returned. "I remember going to the party, and having some candy."

"That would explain your crazy behavior K'walski." noted Private.

"I'm not so sure. Candy _does_ make me less like myself than I would like to be, but last night I recall trying something completely different." explained the other penguin.

"What was it?" Skipper asked.

"I remember Maurice giving me a drink to try. He said that it was some fruity mix recipe from Madagascar. It was in a glass bottle about a third of my hight." continued Kowalski. Skipper remembered Kowalski talking about some Madagascar drink after he poured some liquid from a similar bottle into King Julien's cup.

"Maurice gave you that?" Private wondered.

"Yes," said Kowalski. "and after I had some to drink my vision went blurry and I had a strange sensation. I felt so alive and free, like I could do anything!"

"That's very strange," commented Skipper. "What do you remember after that?"

"Not much—I remember drinking more of that drink. The next thing I faintly remember was giving Julien some of it after Maurice told me to. Then I remember waking up in bed and feeling terrible."

"What in the world would do that?" Skipper exclaimed. Rico shrugged his shoulders.

"It definitely wasn't one of my love potions." said Private.

"This is all very suspicious," said the leader penguin, "because after you two left," he pointed to Rico and Kowalski, "I went to Julien to ask where Private was. When I got there he was acting not unlike you were Kowalski. And from what I recall, Maurice was not."

"That means that he didn't have any himself!" observed Kowalski.

"Why in the world would that lemur give something for you to drink that makes animals go crazy, but not have any himself?" Skipper wondered. "Anything else to say?" All three of the other penguins shook there heads.

"Skippah, what's this little metal ball here? Isn't it..." Private said, holding the small metal ball. Skipper inturrupted.

"Kowalski found that at the crime scene inside one of the bushes," he explained.

"Doesn't this go into that air thing you showed us a while ago?" asked the youngest penguin.

"That's classified information, Private!" shouted Skipper, standing up from his seat.

"Sorry, sir!" cowered the younger penguin. Skipper looked around, and upon noticing that they were not being watched from anywhere, took his seat again.

"But yes, that is it." he said quietly.

"So who else could have killed Julien?" asked Kowalski.

"You saw the crime scene yourself, soldier," Skipper responded, "what do you think based on what has been said here?"

"Well I would think that the new lemur Maelie did it," said the taller penguin, "she was the last one private saw before he was knocked out. Some of her fur was at the crime scene as well."

"Also, the fact that King Julien was killed shortly after she appeared is suspicious." Private added.

"I saw Maelie walking Julien into those bushes we found Ringtail's body in last night before I left. I didn't think anything of it until now." Skipper said.

"So she was the last person anyone saw with him." added Kowalski. Rico nodded vigorously.

"It all adds up," Private stated.

"Yes, but nobody is going to believe us. Most of our evidence is just our word." said Skipper solemnly.

"We're going to need something more; a confession of some sort." Kowalski said after a pause.

"Does this zoo have any sort of camera system, Skippah?" Private asked.

"I'm afraid not," the tall penguin answered for Skipper.

Skipper looked at the table, then said, "Where has that female lemur been, anyway?"

"She sure disappears a lot," noted Kowalski. Rico nodded.

"Well we know what we know," said Private.

"Agreed. At ease, soldiers. We resume active duty early tomorrow." Skipper ordered. The other three penguins saluted them and then they separated for the remainder of the evening.

Several hours later, the zoo closed and several frustrated guests left. The majority of the animals had been in hiding or just had not been up to much for the day. There was an uneasy feel that hung over the zoo since Julien had been found that morning, and because word of his murder spread fast, the zoo remained depressed and lethargic. The animals were morning the death of a friend, although Alice or any of the other zookeepers had no idea. Skipper assumed that one of them would find out soon enough, and to keep the guests happy, they would adopt another lemur to take Julien's place.

It would only be a matter of time before things returned to normal, he thought, sitting on top of the bunker watching the sun set and a few lone stars reveal themselves. He noticed how eerily silent it was, not just because Julien wasn't around to crank his music, but the overall feeling of sadness that hung over the zoo made all of the animals quiet. Skipper could usually hear some sort of bird call or another animal moving around. Now, all he could hear was cars speeding by and the occasional police siren.

He remembered all the trouble _King_ Julien had put him and his team through since day one of arriving at the zoo. The lemur's shenanigans had put the team in jeopardy on more than one occasion. He remembered the time he accidentally had Mort shipped to some psychotic toy factory and they had nearly been incinerated. Skipper remembered when he had tried to silence one of Julien's all night dance party and the Lemur had them both pummeled by Joey the kangaroo. The penguin shook his head... maybe they were better off without that crazy Ringtail?

He thought about how he had grown accustomed to Julien's crazy parties, and how Skipper usually wore his blue polka dotted earmuffs to get a little piece and quiet at night. He was enjoying the silence that enveloped him now, but something deep down inside him wished there was some sort of din to break the stillness that had an iron fisted grip on the zoo. Suddenly, he got his wish when a raspy scream came from down below. It was closely followed by a crash and many sounds of struggling from undernieth. Skipper recognized the scream as Rico's and immediately made his way down the hatch.

Upon reentering the bunker the first thing the leader penguin saw was Rico grunting and barely being held back by a struggling Kowalski.

"What's going on down here?" said Skipper, walking over to Rico and Kowalski. Now he saw private on the other side of the bunker cowering against a wall.

"I – Don't know, Skipper," said Kowalski between grunts of exertion, "Rico just attacked – Private."

"Rico, calm down, man!" Skipper said to the heavyset penguin who was still fighting to break free from Kowalski's grip. Upon hearing Skipper's voice he stopped fighting and stood up straight. "Private, what happened?"

"I don't know, Skippah," the small penguin explained, his heart rate elevated, "Rico looked like he was going to bed but then he threw that at me," he pointed to a shattered piece of glassware on the ground, "and then came after me!"  
"Rico, what's gotten into you, man!" shouted Skipper, slapping his teammate upside the head. Rico scowled profoundly and Kowalski lessened his grip

"_Uh, uh uh!" _he grunted, pointing his beak towards the bunks the penguins used to sleep in.

"Kowalski, let him go," commanded Skipper. The tall penguin complied and released Rico, who immediately scrambled over to the bunks and pointed at Private's bed. Skipper and Kowalski walked to observe what Rico was so upset over.

"Oh, my," Kowalski said quietly when he saw what it was. Skipper noticed it too, the glinted L shape that could only have been one thing. It reflected the dim light from the bunker back at skipper, although he noticed the light that reflected back at him was tinted red. Skipper found himself speechless.

"But... But," he stuttered, "That's... That's..."

"Classified," Kowalski finished for him slowly. All three penguins around the bunks turned to face private, looks of horror on their faces.

"What?" he said innocently.

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN**

Thanks so much for all of the reviews i'm getting! They're really inspiring me to continue writing =). So, check back later for more chapters, I'll try to get them out as soon as I can!


	7. Unglued

**Chapter 7 - Unglued**

"This is for your own good Private," Skipper said, locking the door of the cage Private had been placed in.

"But, Skippah! I didn't do it!" cried Private. "I didn't even know that thing existed!" He was standing in a small caged crate not much unlike one of those pet carriers that Alice used to take the penguins to the vet.

"The evidence says you did, soldier," returned Skipper, feeling his gut turning into a knot at the thought that his teammate could have done such a thing. "And besides, Rico might pummel you if you come out."

Rico was sitting in the opposite corner of the bunker, holding his plastic doll. He was glaring at Private as though he was a deadly enemy. Private averted his eyes from the heavyset penguin's and tried to ignore him, but Skipper could tell Rico's stare was burning into Private's skull.

"Taking classified weaponry without authorization," Skipper explained softly, "Is cause for immediate discharge."

"But..."

"That's enough, Private," Skipper interrupted, shaking his head. He didn't want to believe his teammate had broken his trust in such a way, but right now there were no other explanation. The item of controversy was laying on a table not too far from where Skipper now stood. It was a Powerline 15XT air pistol, that looked much like a real firearm. It had a shiny but dark surface that mysteriously glinted any light back into the looker's eyes. Right now, it had a few blotches of dried blood on it. Skipper walked over to check the ammunition. Sure enough, exactly three pellets were missing.

"Boys, I think we found our murder weapon," he stated solemnly. "A few pumps and this would inflict the exact wounds we saw on Julien to any creature,"

"This doesn't add up," Kowalski started, "there's no way private could have killed Julien... what motive does he have?" Skipper remained silent and looked at the pistol laying on the table. "Skipper?"  
"None at all, Kowalski," he said, "none at all." Skipper wanted to believe what he said was true, but something deep inside him was telling him that it wasn't. He wished he could just rip that little part out and trust his comrade again. He looked back at the little penguin locked up in the cage, and felt a knot form in his throat when he saw tears streaking down the penguin's face. The sight was almost torturer for the older penguin.

"Skippah!" he pleaded, "I didn't do it!" Skipper wondered if Private could sense what he was feeling. He hoped not. The leader penguin turned and walked away from Private, feeling the best thing to do was ignore him. "Skippah!"

Skipper walked up to Kowalski and then spoke softly. "How did he find out about it?" He asked.

"I'm not really sure, Skipper." Kowalski responded, shrugging his shoulders. "I never told him." Skipper nodded. He had found the air pistol a few years back. It was in a purse that had been abandoned on a zoo bench, along with some additional pellets. He remembered bringing it back to HQ and showing it to Kowalski and Rico, then thought about throwing it out. He knew back then that something like that would not be a good thing to have around the zoo, in case it fell into the wrong hands. Oh, how he wished he had listened to his gut back then. If he had just thrown out the stupid weapon in the first place none of this would be happening. Julien might even still be alive.

Skipper glanced to the weapon's former place of concealment. It was a hidden trapdoor in the floor of the bunker, one that seamlessly fit in with the rest of the ground. One could not wish to find it unless they had previous knowledge of where it was or a very keen eye. Skipper thought that it would remained hidden there, like some lost treasure. Apparently it wasn't as well hidden as he thought.

"Skipper, are you alright?" asked Kowalski quietly, breaking Skipper's trance. He realized he had been staring at the taller penguin for a few minutes.

"Yes," he responded, "just a little shaken up.

"Aye." Kowalski glanced at the ground, then looked back up. "What should we do about Rico?" The heavyset penguin was still sitting across the room from his teammate, glaring with the same amount of anger as previously.

"I..." Skipper paused, "I don't know."

"I tried to comfort him while you were talking to Private, but his nerves are unmoving." Kowalski explained. "Although I'm not sure if he thinks that Private killed Julien or not now."

Silence. "We'll leave him be for now," Skipper finally said. "Rico, time to get some shuteye. We resume full duty early tomorrow morning." Rico removed his eyes from a shaken Private, and waddled off to his bunk. Kowalski did the same. Skipper shut off the lights and went to his bed. He heard a slight whimper from the cage across the room.

"Sleep tight, Private," Skipper said to himself.

_______________________________________________

A loud alarm sounded. Skipper's eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright in his bunk. There was a red light flashing somewhere and sound of a lot of struggling. His vision became less blurry and suddenly he realized he was in HQ, still in his bunk. A small computer like device was sounding "evacuate!" over and over again. All at once he knew the alarm was the intruder alarm that Kowalski had installed. He jumped out of his bed and assumed combat position.

In front of him he could see two dark figures rolling on the floor. Each time the red light flashed he could make out more and more minute details about the two, but he was still dumbfounded at who they could be.

"Men! Battle stations!" He yelled, but none of the penguins sprang up behind him. The leader penguin saw on a particularly bright flash of light that one of the two figures rolling on the ground was a penguin.

"_Ugh!"_ it grunted through exertion, obviously struggling. Skipper began to move to help out who he thought might be one of his teammates, but as he took his first step his muscles locked up. Suddenly he felt very cold and alone. Most of all, he felt something building up inside him, something that he did not feel very often. He knew the cold, dark sense to be fear, and his heart began to beat faster. He wanted to turn and run, but for some reason his legs would not respond and he was frozen on the spot. Suddenly Skipper heard a sickening crunch of bone.

"_Gah!"_ the penguin on the floor shouted, and Skipper saw its body fall limp.

"No!" Skipper shouted. He was still paralyzed by fear. It was a level of fear that he had never felt before. He had trained himself to be brave even when staring mortal peril in the face... but this feeling was eating him from the inside.

Suddenly, the other figure grabbed an object off the ground and picked itself up. Skipper recognized a glint off the object and knew exactly what it was. Suddenly the figure began to step slowly towards Skipper and the penguin felt his breath leave him. The dark shadow raised an arm that Skipper knew was holding the Powerline 15XT, and aimed it directly at the terrified penguin. Skipper covered his face with his flippers, expecting the worst.

"_Aaiiiee!" _screamed a small figure from nowhere, rushing towards the dark figure that was aiming the air pistol at Skipper. Skipper recognized the voice as Private's instantly. The short penguin's features were barely visible in the dim, flashing light, but Skipper could make out that his face was full of blind rage. The penguin tackled the threatening shadow full force, and they slid halfway across the room. Private began to throw random punches at the figure on the ground, ignoring his martial arts combat training.

"First, you kill King Julien," he said, between grunts and punches, "And now you kill Kowalski," Skipper's gut tied itself up into a tight knot at the thought that Kowalski was dead. "And now... its your turn to die!" Skipper could hear the young penguin's voice grow darker with the last words. Skipper knew he should be doing something to help the poor little penguin defend him. He couldn't find the courage inside of him, and suddenly he felt like he should be running away instead. He noticed that Private, enraged beyond control, was suddenly beginning to loose in his struggle. He cried out as the shadowy figure escaped his grasp, a kind of battle cry that is emitted soldiers on a battlefield. The sound penetrated deep into Skipper's mind and a shiver ran up his spine. He took a step back, gasping for breath as his heart raced.

"Skippah!" the small penguin screamed suddenly, but it was too late. Skipper heard a pop similar to the one he had heard the night Julien was killed and he watched his teammate fall to the floor. Private's body tumbled over itself as he fell, and as the red light continued flashing Skipper saw a gruesome looking bullet wound right between his eyes. The leader penguin fell to the ground, loosing all the strength he had in his legs. He managed to catch himself with his flippers, and his beak fell wide open.

"How... How..." he sputtered looking up at the dark figure, "Where's Rico?" For some odd reason he could not distinguish any of the shadow's features.

"Dead," the shadow spoke softly. The voice was male, very deep and steady. Skipper had never heard it before but for some reason it sounded vaguely familiar.

"Oh, my..." Skipper choked.

"Soon to be you as well, my friend." the shadow walked over to Skipper. Skipper didn't know what to do or say. He had just watched two of his teammates – his closest friends – die right before his eyes and he didn't do anything. He didn't even do anything to stop the murderer from slaughtering the two innocent penguins he now saw lifeless on the floor. He had no idea what happened to Rico, but he was sure his weapons specialist had met the same fate as private.

"Please," he pleaded shakily, "Just kill me. I got nothing to live for."

"As you wish," the dark shadow stated calmly, and aimed the air pistol at Skipper. Skipper gritted his teeth for what he knew was about to come. "Actually, I'll let you live. I'll let you suffer from knowing you let your teammates die and didn't do a thing to defend them." the shadow spat. His words burned Skipper's being worse than anything he had ever heard before. He felt a hot tear run from his eye.

"No..."

"See you around," the shadow said, turning to leave. The small computer device was still resounding '_Evacuate!'_ and the red light still flashed. The shadow turned off the alarm as he left, and Skipper fell to the floor in total darkness. His convulsed and wriggled on the floor like an infant. He could do nothing to stem a steady flow of tears that traveled to the floor.

"KOWALSKI!" he screamed on the top of his lungs.

"Skipper..." a voice said that seemed far off. "Skipper..." it began to get louder. Suddenly the leader penguin recognized the voice to be Kowalski's. "Skipper... wake up!"

______________________________

Skipper suddenly realized he was laying on the floor of a dark HQ. Kowalski was standing over him looking at him with an arched brow.

"Good, you're awake!"

**AN ~~~~~~~~~ AN**

**Thanks again for all of the reviews I've been getting! Also, this story just surpassed 200 visits =D! I have the whole story planned out now, so as long as I can stay intrested I should be updating every few days. Keep checking back!**


	8. Paint

**Chapter 8 - Paint**

"What happened?" Skipper mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"I'm not sure, Skipper. You fell out of bed and then you screamed out my name." Kowalski explained. "Did you have a bad dream?"  
"Uh, yeah," said the leader penguin, sitting up.

"Is everything alright?" Kowalski asked after a few seconds.

"Yeah." Skipper now noticed his heart was racing and his face was wet with tears.

"OK," responded Kowalski, climbing back into his bunk, "See you in the morning." Skipper nodded, then climbed back into his own bunk. When he had calmed down he saw that he had woken up neither Rico nor Private. He felt embarrassed for letting Kowalski see him on the ground like he was. For some reason, now he felt extremely weak. Even though, he couldn't seem to get to sleep at all. The dream that he had kept playing itself over and over in his head like a broken record. Every time he shut his eyes it was like he was reliving his team's death again and again.

Skipper rolled around in his bunk for quite some time until he saw the gray of morning showing through one of the few windows that showed the water in the pool. He climbed out of his bunk, and went up the hatch knowing it was too early to get the team up.

Upon emerging into the chilly morning air, Skipper saw a gruesome sight before him. Scrawled out in huge, red symbols was some sort of code on the platform above the penguin's home. Skipper gasped, just one of the drawings was bigger than he was! He bent over and touched the liquid that the word had been drawn with. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that it wasn't blood. He had no idea what it meant, but he had a feeling.

Suddenly, Skipper was hit in the back of the head with a ketchup packet that exploded on contact, covering him in the red substance. He wiped some off and then turned around.

"That's what you get," Maurice said in his deep voice. "For still being friends with that killer." He was perched on the fence that kept guests from falling into the penguin's habitat.

"How many times do I have to tell you, mammal! Private didn't kill Julien!" Skipper returned heatedly.

"_How many times do I have to tell you,_" the lemur mocked, making Skipper scowl profusely. "Do you know what this says?" He pointed to the symbols.

"No."

"Well," Maurice sneered, "it says _Murderer_."

Skipper gasped, "How do you know?"

"I had the chimps write it out for me," he explained.

"Why?"

"The lemur shook his head. "You're an idiot." Skipper, who had never really felt any sort of true hate towards any creature at the zoo, had a growing urge to knock the lemur off his post.

Noticing that Skipper was not going to respond to his insult, Maurice continued. "The whole world will know that you're protecting a murderer." He whipped another packet at Skipper, who easily dodged it. "And that's written in paint from the zoo supply shed. It's still wet now but when it dries it will be permanent."

Skipper took another look at the liquid he had touched. He noticed that it was still wet but was quickly drying.

"Why would the chimps do this for you?" Skipper asked, unsure what else to say.

"Well, word spread faster than I ever hoped it would," Maurice responded, "And now pretty much the whole zoo hates Private and the rest of you." Skipper looked at the ground. Maurice and Maelie must have spread the rumors the day before.

"I've got news for you, Ringtail," started Skipper after a few minutes of silence. "Kowalski and I returned to the spot where Julien was found dead after the funeral. We found some dark fur that weren't Julien's lodged in a stick there." Maurice's face seemed to radiate a touch of fear and surprise as Skipper spoke. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Skipper's keenness to pick up on. He continued. "Which leaves me to believe your friend Maelie did it," Suddenly the emotion on the lemur's face vanished and his eyes lit up in pleasure.

"So you found a few hairs? There was a storm, you know." argued Maurice. "The zoo still hates you regardless." The light left the lemurs eyes and his voice grew deeper. "You'd be smart to exile your penguin friend as quickly as possible. Some animals in this zoo want revenge, and they won't just stop at Private, catch my drift?"

Skipper opened his beak to defend Private, but the words were caught in his throat. He remembered how the murder weapon had been found in the small penguin's bed and he lost the urge to speak. Maurice turned and left, letting the remaining ketchup packets fall into the pool with a few plunks. Skipper looked uneasily at the ground, then went down the hatch to wake the other penguins.

When all three penguins were aroused (Private being released from his cage for morning duties) Skipper lead them to see what Maurice had the chimps write for him. Upon seeing it, the penguins were confused. However, when Skipper told them what it said, Kowalski gasped and Rico took a step back from private. Skipper glared at the heavyset penguin as a warning not to attack the younger penguin, and Rico returned his attention to the word on the ground below him.

A few minutes later and Kowalski had retrieved a brush that they used for maintenance from inside and Rico regurgitated another. They then spent the majority of the early morning attempting to scrub off the paint, but it was in vain. They managed to lighten the pigments but the paint had already soaked deep into the concrete and they did not possess the tools to remove it.

When they had done all that they could do, the sun was beginning to rise over the shorter buildings on the horizon. Zoo employees would start arriving soon to preform early morning duties. Skipper thought about skipping their training for the day, but then he remembered that they had skipped it the previous day. Moreover, he remembered his dream and realized his team was not fit for a situation like that. The only solution would be to train longer and harder, he thought. And Skipper did just that.

The training was rough. Skipper made the three penguins do twice as many laps around the pool and expected them to be done in half the time. He himself did not get into the water once, but rather he kept shouting at the other three for being "slow" when in fact they were setting record times. After that they continued with their hand to hand combat, during which Skipper was particularly commanding.

"I want to see you defend yourself, Kowalski," he said seriously, standing across from his taller comrade. They assumed combat positions and then began fighting. Kowalski defended himself well at first, and even got in a counter attack or two, but the tides quickly turned as Skipper turned up his own effort. He never went this hard on his teammates, but he knew that there were hostiles out there that were even better fighters than he was. Soon enough, the leader penguin deflected a flipper that Kowalski put up to defend himself and then chopped the intelligent one directly in the gut. Kowalski grunted in pain and collapsed on the ground.

"C'mon, Kowalski! What if you were defending yourself from an enemy?" Skipper growled. Pulling the penguin back onto his feet.

"Skipper... I can't..." Kowalski wheezed. Skipper arched a brow.

"Never quit, Soldier," the taller penguin managed to obtain his breath back at this point. "Alright, go practice with Private. Rico, you're up."

The scarred penguin walked up to skipper. Knowing what he was supposed to be doing, the two began sparring. It began much the same way as it did with Kowalski, Rico seeming to have the upper hand. Suddenly, Skipper went all out and flipped his heavier friend onto his back.

"You can't just expect the same thing every time, Soldier!" Rico grunted and picked himself up. The two then continued their training session. It ended with Skipper flooring his teammate again. The scarred penguin got up, and emitted a quiet growl at Skipper.

"Alright, men, that's enough." Skipper panted, exhausted from two intense combat sessions. Private and Kowalski, who had been practicing basic blocking up until then, ceased sparring. Skipper looked up and saw a few zookeepers looking over the fence at the penguins. He was unsure if they were more concerned with seeing the birds fight or if they were looking at the _Murderer_ scrawled out on the concrete. If it was the training, it wouldn't be the first time the zookeepers had accidentally seen the penguins practice their hand to hand combat, so Skipper wasn't too worried. "Very disappointing performance today, boys."

"Skipper," Kowalski groaned "We understand that you're the best fighter, but that was a little excessive." Skipper arched his brow and walked over to his teammate.

"Was that insubordination I heard, Kowalski?" he asked firmly.

"Uh," the taller penguin stammered. "No, sir."

"Good." Suddenly, Skipper realized that he hadn't eaten in nearly twenty four hours, and he walked over to the fish bowl. He grabbed two fish that were there since the previous day and then went down the hatch into the bunker. "Private?"

"Yes, Skippah?"

"You are to return to your cell immediately after you eat." ordered the elder penguin.

Private sighed and made a very sad face. "Yes, sir." Skipper disappeared into the HQ.

"Blimey, why was he so tough on us today?" Private asked after the three had the rest of the fish. Kowalski was standing near him, and Rico was sitting a distance from the two looking into the pool.

"I may have a theory," Kowalski responded. He proceeded to tell the other two about Skipper the previous night.

"So the Skippah had a bad dream, I have them all the time," Private said.

"Yes, but he cried out 'Kowalski, I let you die!', which is what woke me up." Kowalski continued.

"So you think Skippah is taking out his nightmare on us?"

"Precisely," Kowalski nodded, "If in his dream he wasn't able to defend us he may just want us to be able to defend ourselves." Private fell quiet. Rico nodded slowly from where he was sitting. The other two could tell he was upset over how Skipper had treated him. Rico was a penguin who seemed hard on the outside, but was sensitive inside. He got up and went into the HQ.

"Hey K'walski," Private said when he was sure his heavyset penguin was out of ear shot.

"Yes?"  
Private paused and then spoke softly, "Do you think I took that classified weaponry?" Kowalski looked uneasy for a second.

"Private, I don't want to believe you did, and I'll do anything to prove your innocence." he responded slowly.

"Thanks K'walski," Private said sincerely. "I just wish I _could."  
"_We'll figure something out,"

"I certainly hope so..." said Private, a touch of hopelessness was in his voice. "I certainly don't want to stay in that cage forever."


	9. Mysterious Visitor

**Chapter 9 - Mysterious Visitor**

"Checkmate!" proclaimed Kowalski from the chessboard. Rico grumbled, knowing that he was going to loose since the start. Skipper was sitting across the room watching the two play. He averted his eyes from Private's, which were always staring at Kowalski. Skipper shook his head at the two playing chess... why would Rico accept such a challenge? Maybe it was because Kowalski had nobody else left to play with.

It was already dark outside—the zoo had closed and the guests had gone home. For another day the penguins did nothing to entertain. After training that morning, they simply spent another day buried in their HQ. Skipper was not sure exactly why the penguins weren't interested in entertaining, but he was pretty sure their morals were still low from Julien's untimely death.

Outside a large, plastic blue tarp laid draped over the makeshift ice floe the penguins used, covering up the unsightly word that had been written in red paint. Alice and a few other zookeepers had placed it there upon seeing the word _Murder_, which would not be a good thing for guests to see in a penguin habitat. She figured it was graffiti done by some rowdy teenagers, although she had no idea how they might have gotten in. Nonetheless, she was disgusted by the fact that such an act had been done, and she would have none of it.

The tarp on top of the penguin's HQ made a makeshift barrier over the fishbowl hatch, and due to the fact that the tarp had been secured even Rico was not able to push it open. Eventually, Skipper just sliced through it with his swiss army knife to get some fresh air earlier during the day.

Now, Skipper fixed his attention on Private who was sitting quietly in his cage. He had been there all day, since training was over. He looked awfully bored and tired, leaning up against the hard side of the box. Most of Skipper said suddenly that he should let his comrade out of the cage for a few hours, and let him burn off a little energy. The hardened, military bit responded by telling him that Private was suspected of taking classified weaponry. Until the issue was resolved, Private should be under full surveillance, he thought.

An hour or two passed, filled by Kowalski killing Rico in chess, Skipper daydreaming and Private looking bored. Suddenly, the door to the penguin's HQ burst open. Skipper jumped to his feet and looked for any sort of threat.

"Men, on your feet!" he said, looking at what was in the doorway. Kowalski and Rico jumped up and stood behind their leader, ready to defend themselves. They calmed down a bit when they saw exactly what it was—A man was hunched over in the small access to the penguin HQ and he had a several small pet carriers behind him. Skipper recognized his uniform as a Zoo employee and he loosened up. "At ease, men, at ease," he said, "it's just a zoo keeper."

The man reached out an arm and gently picked Skipper up from where he was standing. He set the penguin back down in one of the pet carriers. He knew that the penguins never had any trouble when it came time to take them out of the exhibit. A few seconds later and Rico and Kowalski were placed in their carriers, which were handed off to another zoo keeper outside. However, when he looked for the fourth penguin and saw it already inside a cage, he looked in suspicion. The cage it was in was just out of his reach, and he squeezed as much of his mass through the door as he could to reach in. He didn't think much of the things he saw – A TV, a chessboard, and pillows in the penguin's bunks. He understood that the zoo did crazy things to keep its animals happy, like giving that zebra a treadmill.

Soon all four penguins were loaded onto a golf cart and driven by Alice to the reptile house, where they were set in a vacant, small exhibit. It already had fish and a pool full of fresh water for the penguins. They were not reachable by any of the other animals around.

"Alright, I moved the penguins into the holding pen," Alice said into her radio, unlocking the lock on Skipper's carrier. "You can begin bleaching that horrible graffiti anytime." There was muffled static on the other end of the radio, but Alice seemed to be making words out of it.

"There's something I don't get though." she said, which was followed by more muffling, "I don't get why the smallest one was locked up in a cage. I wonder if a zoo employee did that?" With that, she walked off, leaving the penguins alone.

Seeing that Alice was gone, the penguins stopped acting like they do whenever people are around and gathered in the middle of the small enclosure. Rico made sure he stayed several feet away from Private, who's cage was unlocked by Alice. Skipper didn't care too much that he was out right now, though. As Rico backed up when Private approached, it made Private stare at the ground.

"I wonder... are we being transferred?" started Kowalski immediately.

"You say that every time the people put us in here," answered Skipper, shaking his head. He recognized the small holding pen as the place they went between tasks, mostly when the zoo employees felt they wanted to clean the Penguin's habitat for themselves. They usually found it spotless, however.

"Oh, right,"

"Skippah, you think they're going to do something about that word that Maurice had written?" asked Private.

"Most definitely," he responded, "That cover they put on top was temporary." The penguins had no idea what Alice had said, but Skipper knew what was happening anyway.

There was a moment of silence, then Private spoke, "Out of one cage and into another, eh?" None of the penguins took this very humorously and Rico emitted a low growl. To this, Skipper slapped the heavier penguin across the head.

"_Yak! Yak!_" shouted the heavyset penguin to his superior. Skipper arched a brow and slapped his explosives expert again. The penguin knew at this point to not continue and grumbled and he waddled away towards the pool. Kowalski and Private stared in disbelief at their two teammates fight. Neither wanted to say anything at this point, and an awkward silence ensued. Eventually, they three separated themselves and a darkness fell over the enclosure. With none of their normal toys to entertain themselves, Private and Skipper sat doing nothing, while Rico did laps around the small pool. Kowalski paced back and forth.

"Alright, men, looks like we're in here until morning." noted Skipper when he realized it was too late for any employees to still be in the zoo. Kowalski nodded and the other two penguins didn't respond. "I need some fresh air," Skipper said, getting up.

"OK," responded Kowalski, the only one who seemed to be paying attention.

"Even if we're still in this place by sunrise... training will continue, men," Skipper said. This time there was no response, except for a quiet groan. The leader penguin turned and headed towards a familiar wall with a loose air vent panel on it. He loosened the metal and moved it aside, allowing him to navigate the airways. The team had always used this route to get away from the boringness that always happened inside the holding pen. Suddenly, he was surprised that nobody came with him.

When he had found the exit—a small opening near the bottom of the wall In the rear of the building, he emerged into the cool night air. It felt nice after being in the stuffy holding pen. He waddled a bit until he came around to the front of the small building. Then, he stretched and leaned up against the cold brick. He looked up at the sky, which was filled with a bright, full moon. He looked back down and saw something he had not seen before.

A dark shadow was moving quickly towards him. It darted behind light posts and avoided any sort of distinguishing light—skipper could only make out its silhouette from the light of the moon. He noted something very familiar about the shadow, except he couldn't quite put his flipper on it. He tensed up and a assumed a combat formation. He noted that the figure had not noticed him yet, so he crept back into a shadow that was being cast on the side of the building. His heart began to beat fast and he could feel adrenaline start to pour into his veins.

The figure moved close, and Skipper took advantage of the moment and pounced. He landed directly on top of the shadow when it wasn't ready, and they toppled to the ground. The thing he landed on screamed in surprise, and kicked wildly. Skipper struggled for a minute, and then successfully pinned it down, just like he had been training to do. The animal below him stopped struggling and looked up at him.

"Skipper!" it said in all too familiar voice. A voice that Skipper was beginning to hate very much.

"Oh, its you..." said Skipper. He had recognized the voice as Maelie's, and in the bright moonlight he was able to make out her face. He tightened his grip on the lemurs shoulders.

"Ow, Skipper!" she grunted, "you're hurting me!"

"What do you want, mammal?" Skipper asked quickly, holding his grip firm.

"Let go... of me... and I'll tell you!" the female said between grunts from struggling to loosen Skipper's painful grip.

"No!" shouted Skipper, "Tell me what you want!"  
"I... want to... I want to talk!" the lemur pleaded, tears coming to her eyes. Skipper loosened his grip at the sight it, and the anger left his face. He let go of the mammal and stood up. "Thank you," she said quietly, rubbing her shoulders where Skipper's flippers had been.

**AN~~~~~~~~~~AN**

First of all, i'm sorry that it took me almost five days to update! I haven't been that busy, but I have been spending most of my time playing video games and such. I planned to try to update a chapter every three days! I'll try to hold true to that from now on. Also, thanks for all of the super positive reviews I'm getting! It's really encouraging to hear that people are enjoying my story.

So, what does Maelie have in store to tell Skipper? Check back in a few days to read Chapter 10 and find out!


	10. Confessions

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 10 - Confessions**

"You've got some grip, Skipper," Maelie commented softly, rubbing her shoulders.

Skipper arched a brow and then responded, "I don't want to play games, lemur. Why would you want to talk to me?"

"I need to talk to you about..." her voice trailed off and her face grew blank.

"About what?"

"It's about... All this stuff that's been happening." Skipper saw the female glance over her shoulder and look into the night behind her. Skipper wondered if she was afraid she was being followed.

"Oh, how you assume Private killed your friend Julien and how you spread accusations around the Zoo all in the course of a day?" Skipper said calmly.

"Yes, about... that," Maelie returned, her voice quavering. "Look, can we please go inside?"

Skipper arched his brow again. "Why?"

"Oh... just because it's... it's so cold out here!" Maelie explained. Skipper glanced up and down her body—she had no sort of weapon or anything to hide one in. Obviously her purpose was not to attack Private or any of the team. He wondered if she had a tape recorder hidden and was trying to get a false confession out of Private. He didn't see one, but he knew that the things were only getting smaller and smaller.

"I don't know," said Skipper, crossing his flippers, "my team might tear you to shreds if they see you now."

"Oh no," Maelie said quickly, "This has gone way too far already!" Skipper's eyes opened wide with curiosity.

"What has gone too far?"

"Please, let me inside and I'll tell you!" Maelie spoke with haste.

"Answers first," commanded Skipper. The female lemur paused for a second, as if she was listening. She looked over her shoulder again and at the tops of the brick walls of the habitats around the two. Then she took a few steps closer to Skipper and spoke softly.

"I know this won't make much sense, but... I uh... know Private didn't kill Julien." she stated, looking into Skipper's eyes with her own. He had seen eyes of many liars, and by looking into hers he knew that her words were sincere. He dropped his defensiveness. She obviously was not trying to do anything negative to his team.

"You do?" Skipper responded, surprised. "Then why..."

"Hold the questions for when we get inside," interrupted the lemur, "Please." Skipper nodded, and then waddled off to the air vent he had used to get outside, beckoning Maelie to follow him. It was a short walk through the air shaft and Skipper had retraced his steps to get back to the Penguins' holding pen. The penguin slid through the opening and onto the cold concrete of the pen.

"Hey Skippah," Private greeted upon his leader entering, "Had a relaxing..." He stopped talking when he saw Maelie emerge after Skipper. "Um..."

"_Yack, yack!_" Rico blabbered, although it didn't sound like he was very enraged.

"Skipper, what is Maelie doing here?" Kowalski asked, jumping to his feet and seeming very annoyed. "Isn't she hostel?" Skipper thought he felt the lemur behind him shudder at the word.

"No, team, Maelie is not a hostel," Skipper responded, holding up his flippers to settle Kowalski. "She has some vital information she wants to tell us,"

Maelie nodded. "It's about Julien's death and what's been going on around here lately." The three penguins got up and huddled closer to the female lemur, hungry for answers. "Where to start..."

"You can start by telling us why you killed Julien," Kowalski spat. Skipper heard Private and Rico agree. Maelie seemed to shudder again.

"I didn't kill Julien..." she started.

"And how could you frame Private?" Kowalski continued, cutting Maelie off.

"I didn't want to..."

"What do you mean you didn't want to?" said Private, looking angry. "So you would have rather framed someone else?"  
"I had to or I..."

"Would have gotten caught and disassociated like poor Private here?" said Kowalski.

Skipper noticed that badgering the lemur like this was not going to accomplish anything. "Men, let the lemur speak!" Private shut his bill that he had just opened to say something.

"Thank you, Skipper," Maelie returned. "Now... what I was trying to say was I know that Private didn't murder Julien." All three penguins had the same looks of shock and surprise on their faces as when Skipper first heard the lemur say that. Rico glanced from Maelie to Private a few times, trying to register the words he had just heard. Kowalski was the first to recover.

"That's probable," he said, still angrily, "because you did."

"I didn't kill Julien either." she pleaded.

"Oh?" Skipper said. "Then who did?"

Maelie opened her mouth, but it looked like the words that she was about to say got stuck in her throat and she closed it again. She suddenly looked very scared. "Um... I can't say..."

"Why not?" asked Skipper.

"Because..."

"She doesn't know," Kowalski finished for her.

"Kowalski! Stop interrupting man!" Skipper said, annoyed with his teammate. The taller penguin apologized, and Maelie continued, but changed the subject.

"I'm so, very sorry Private," she said, looking at the youngest penguin. "that this whole thing got dumped upon you."

"If you're so _sorry_, then why'd you do it?" Private returned bitterly.

"I was... I was told to." Maelie answered uncomfortably. Skipper arched a brow at her words.

"Told to? By who?" he asked curiously. Was she working for someone higher up?

"I... I can't say..."

"Maelie," Skipper said blatantly, "This is not a game. Julien's dead and if you know who..."

"I realize he's dead!" Maelie interrupted suddenly. She looked at the ground uncomfortably. Skipper thought that she may know exactly who was behind all of this. "This has all gone way too far... and it's all my fault." The lemur placed both of her paws to her face.

Both Private and Kowalski opened their beaks, but Skipper held up a flipper to silence them.

"What's all your fault?" he interrogated.

"Julien's murder, Private being blamed... The whole zoo hating you." she quavered. Skipper knew he had to continue gently to get the information he needed.

"How is Julien's murder your fault?" he asked, hoping with all his heart that she would confess.

"I could have protected him... I could have saved him... If only I was stronger..." she continued. Her body started to shake very slightly. Skipper was surprised at her words... was she just doing more acting or was she really telling the truth.

"You could have protected him?" Kowalski repeated, urging Maelie to continue.

"I could have. But Julien was drunk and I couldn't get him to do anything but stand there and be massacred!" Skipper took in her words one at a time and noted the word _drunk_. He remembered Julien and Kowalski acting strangely after drinking some sort of unidentified liquid.

"So you're saying you were there when the murder was committed?" Private asked. No answer. Maelie still held her head in her hands.

"I let this go way too far..." she repeated after a few moments.

"Who were you trying to protect Julien from, Maelie?" Skipper asked, trying to keep the conversation moving slow. No answer, only a deep breath. Skipper decided it was time to change the subject.

"What about Private?" he asked. "He said you were the last thing he saw before he blacked out." Skipper could tell the lemur suddenly tensed up. She moved her paws from her face and looked up. Her eyes were wet with tears.

"Yes," Maelie answered to Skipper's relief that his teammate was telling the truth, "Private was walking up to me when he got knocked out." Skipper's heart dropped... Everything the lemur was saying was fitting into place, except for the fact that she claimed she did not kill Julien. If she didn't, then who did?

"Who knocked me out?" asked the youngest penguin, feeling the half healed wound on his head.

"T-the one that killed Julien," sniffed Maelie. Another piece to the puzzle. Skipper felt how torn up she was about Julien's death. How could she have killed ringtail if she was turning into an emotional wreck every time she recalled the fact that he was dead?

"Why would the murder want to knock me out?" Private asked to himself.

"You were to close to discovering what was going on... he didn't want you to..." she stopped suddenly, and her eyes grew large and blank. _He_. The suspect they were looking for was a _He_. Skipper's began to recall all of the male guests at the party.

"Who's he?" Kowalski asked. Skipper wished he hadn't. Maelie looked very frightened for a second and then made her way for the air vent quickly.

"I've said to much," she called, "Got to go!"  
"Wait!" Skipper shouted, but it was too late. She had disappeared into the ventilation shaft. He looked at his teammates who were standing in a half circle. They exchanged looks of surprise, shock, fright, and confusion with each other for some time. Skipper wished she hadn't fled the scene like she did... he had many unanswered questions that she may have had the answers to. He wanted to ask her about the air pistol, the feathers and fur found at the murder scene, and more about the liquid Julien had been drinking.

"Well troops," he said after some time, "I don't know what's going on anymore."

"Me neither, Skipper." Kowalski said. Rico shook his head and Private stared blankly at his leader.

"But we need to get that lemur alone again," he stated, "She knows who killed Julien."

A lot of things didn't make sense. Her anger that had filled her eyes the last time he had saw her at the funeral was completely gone. It didn't even have any reminisce that it had once truly been there. She seemed as though guilt was eating her from the inside. Skipper noticed how she talked as if she didn't get something off of her chest she was going to slowly die. She had apologized to Private—who apologizes to someone for framing them unless it was on accident? And who in the world would regret having the whole zoo against Private when that would be exactly what she wanted?

There was _No way_ she could have killed Julien. The way she acted when she talked about "the one who killed Julien" was a dead give away. She was very afraid of this _He_. Was the lemur was just afraid because whoever it was had killed her best friend or if she was afraid because of something more? It just wasn't adding up.

Skipper suddenly felt very empty on the inside, the place where he thought the answer was, was now an empty void. He was very hungry for answers, and the only way to obtain them out was to get them from Maelie. He worried if the lemur would ever be able to confess everything, though.

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN**

I'm sorry I didn't have this chapter out sooner! I planned to have it up by Wensday, but obviously that didn't work out too well =S. Well here it is, and this story is getting pretty darn close to it's climax! Please review!

How will the penguins deal with the information they have learned? Will they get the rest of the story from Maelie? Does Rico still hate Private even though he heard Maelie's words? All of these questions answered and more in the next chapter! Check back in a few days for chapter 11!


	11. Mutiny

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 11 - Mutiny**

A familiar siren. Skipper jumping out of his bunk and stood ready to face the threat. A dark figure moving closer. Private collapsing from a bullet wound. Skipper locking up from fear. Pleading that the figure would just kill him after he let his team die...

Skipper shuddered, then opened his eyes. He was lying on the cold, hard concrete of the penguins' current holding pen. A stream of moonlight fell in through a high up window, and Skipper knew it was still late. He got up, and realized that he was trembling to some extent. A gaze around the room revealed that all three of the other penguins were still asleep.

Why did he have that dream again? He was very shaken up by it the first time... why did he have to have it again? What forces were at work to make him so unstable?

Skipper sat down and crossed his flippers, trying to calm his nerves. At least this time he hadn't embarrassed himself by screaming something out in his sleep, but for some reason he knew he had been muttering.

The penguin fell back over onto the cold concrete and attempted to fall asleep once again. It was in vain though, as his mind was racing and his body was still tense. From what Maelie had said to him earlier, it took him several hours to fall asleep the first time... to stop his mind's senseless buzzing. He couldn't have been asleep for more than a few minutes, and now he was wide awake again.

Skipper knew one thing for sure: he really missed his bed.

Several sleepless hours later, Skipper saw the sky outside become gray with the morning light. He got up, and went over to a pile of fish that had been supplied for the team. He helped himself to a few, then spoke loudly.

"Men! Rise and shine!" None of the penguins even seemed to move.

Maybe he should skip training for the day? Yesterday's training had been really hard on all of them, and he was sure with everything happening at once the team wouldn't be very focused for training. As he thought of these things he slowly remembered the dream—his team needed to learn how to better defend themselves.

"MEN! RISE AND SHINE!" Skipper shouted on the top of his lungs. Rico, who was sleeping near the pool, jumped and fell into it. Kowalski bolted upright and muttered something under his breath, although Skipper wasn't sure if they were really words or not. Private groaned and slowly sat up.

"Don't think just because were trapped in this dump we're going to pass out on training." said skipper, crossing his flippers. Private looked up at the window, rubbed his eyes, then looked at his leader once more.

"Skippah? Don't we usually train in a few more hours?" he asked. Skipper knew he was getting the team up abnormally early, but he felt that he needed to.

"You need to be ready for anything, Private." He explained. "On your feet, soldiers." His team then assembled in front of him with much silent argument. Skipper arched a brow at their lack of morale.

"Alright," he said, "Since we don't have a suitable pool for swimming laps," he gestured to the tiny pool that was in the pen. "We're going to skip straight to combat training." He heard Rico groan softly.

And that was that... Skipper took turns sparring with each of the penguins. He went just as hard on Kowalski as he had the previous morning and went equally as hard on Private. Although two nearly sleepless nights was taking its tole on the leader. He found himself unable to block simple blows or take advantage of crucial counterstrike openings. Kowalski, who was more rested, quickly floored his leader.

"Skipper! Are you alright?" he said, offering a flipper to help Skipper up. Skipper accepted it, then stood up.

"Yes..." he said after a moment, "Nice work, Soldier." Kowalski smiled at the praise.

"Skippah, are you ok?" Private asked. "You seem to be making a lot of mistakes."

"I'm fine, Private." said Skipper bluntly. He just wished that he had been able to get some rest the previous night. "Alright Rico, you're up." The heavyset penguin groaned again, then walked up to his leader. Kowalski and Private moved off to the side.

"OK, Rico, I'm going to go over the same things as yesterday, and I want to see some improvement." Instructed Skipper, taking a combat pose. Rico nodded an insincere nod, then took a defensive stance.

The fight went on much like it had the previous day—Skipper started easy and then went hard. Determined not to be bested by two of his students, he put in one hundred percent. Rico was able to block most of Skipper's blows but he was unable to find any opportunity to attack back. Skipper was moving to fast for him, and he needed to focus on not being impaled before he could strike. The heavyset penguin watched his leader's moves, and when he thought he had an opening, the penguin swung.

It was a dead hit, Rico landed Skipper directly on the side of his beak with a hard chop. The blow was enough to put Skipper off balance, and Rico took advantage of the moment and floored his leader in no time, just like Kowalski had.

Rico, proud of what he had accomplished, reached down to help Skipper up. This time however, Skipper was becoming frustrated. He was annoyed at his own lack of skill and his exhaustion. There was no way his team were becoming better fighters than him—he simply was not putting enough effort in! He pushed Rico's flipper away and pushed himself up. Rico's expression turned from one of happiness to one of surprise.

"I'm not done with you yet, Rico!" said Skipper, charging. Skipper could feel adrenaline coursing through his veins suddenly, and his muscles became very tense. His vision blurred a bit and he charged into Rico.

The heavier penguin was unable to do much to stop his leader from pummeling him. He blocked a swing here and there, but each one was followed by a hit. He soon felt weak from fending Skipper off twice, and began to miss blocks that he would otherwise get. Skipper spun around his teammate, chopped him in the back, then spun back around to his front side. As he spun around he cocked his flipper, and at the right moment unleashed it with full force directly into Rico's gut. The large penguin wheezed audibly, then hunched over, gasping for air. He coughed up a few items, one of them being a short wooden bat.

Skipper turned around and looked at his teammate hunched over on the ground. Suddenly he realized he had gone too far—he was no longer treating this like a training session.

"Rico... Are you alright?" Skipper said slowly. The heavyset penguin wheezed and looked at the ground.

"_Teeeam_..." he huffed. Skipper knew now that he had made a huge mistake. He had hurt his teammate, his friend.

"Rico..." he started.

"_Team!_" Rico shouted, suddenly hopping up. He grabbed the bat from the ground and held it up threateningly at Skipper.

"_No team!_" growled Rico, pulling his flippers back. He swung the bat full force at Skipper, who found he could do nothing but flinch and prepare for the incoming impact. To his surprise, he felt nothing and heard the bat clatter to the floor some distance behind him. He looked back at his teammate. Rico's eyes were filled with a sort of hatred that burned deep into Skipper's core. Skipper could say nothing to his friend, the words got stuck in his throat. He had made a huge mistake.

Knowing the conversation was over, Rico turned and stormed over to the air vent.

"Rico, what are you doing?" asked Kowalski. Rico removed the cover on the vent and spun to face the other penguins.

"_Leaving! No team!_" he rasped harshly. Kowalski and Private both looked at Skipper who could only look at his teammate in disbelief.

"Wait!" Private cried, and Rico turned around. "Don't leave, Rico!"  
"_No team!"_ he repeated, pointing directly at Skipper. Then he spun and entered the ventilation shaft without another word. Skipper felt his gut sink and the stares of his two remaining team members burning into him.

"Skipper?" Kowalski said uncertainly. Skipper didn't respond, his mind was too wrapped up in how he had just treated his explosives expert.

Skipper had let his training sessions go way out of hand, and he finally pushed Rico right out the door. He pushed his _friend _right out the door. He had pushed his _friend _over the limit and he finally cracked. Skipper had gone all out during their spar, and he had let his instincts take control of him. Rico wasn't a life threatening super villain... he was just a lone penguin who thought his leader wanted to train with him. How could he have treated Rico that way? Skipper felt dirty—he knew he had made a huge mistake. Even though, he felt like he had been doing the right thing until his friend stormed out.

"Should we go after him, Skipper?" asked Kowalski after a few silent moments.

Skipper shook his head. "He'll come back in a few hours."

"Hopefully..." added Private glumly.

Rico waddled down a zoo path. There was not much of anything going on this early in the morning—most animals were still asleep and there were no zookeepers to be found. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but all he knew was that he had to get away from that backstabbing Skipper.

What had he done to deserve to get beat up like that? He was always loyal to the team. He responded to orders and he knew that Skipper was pleased with his performance. Why in the world would Skipper suddenly start treating him like dirt? Why would Skipper go so hard on him when the leader knew that he was a better fighter than Rico? Why didn't he complement him when he finally beat his teacher?

Rico continued down the path... walking passed Marlene's exhibit. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do now, but he'd figure something out. Maybe Marlene would let him stay with her? She was nice... unlike Skipper. Rico opened a sewer grate that led to the underground tunnels to get to Marlene's habitat.

"Hey, Rico." a voice said from behind. Rico turned around on the spot, looking for the source of the sound. "You look like you need someone to talk to." Rico nodded as a short, figure emerged from around a corner.

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN**

Woot for a quick update! I'm going on a short vacation so i figured I'd update before I left! Thank you so much for your intrest in this story, everyone! Since i posted this on 7/6, i've gotten over 1,000 hits, 400 visits and 30 reviews! It's so great to know that many people are enjoying my story! This is growing in length pretty quickly as well =) with this chapter I break 20,000 words! woot!

*Tries to think of cheesy lines to put here to make you read the next chapter* Um... nothing :p


	12. The Killer Revealed

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 12 - The Killer Revealed**

Skipper paced quickly back and forth in the holding pen. It had been nearly twelve hours since Rico stormed out of the building, and Skipper had thought he'd be back by now. He realized how badly he must have hurt the penguin, both inside and out.

Kowalski noticed Skipper pacing. "I'm sure he'll be back any minute now," he comforted, or at least tried to. Skipper didn't respond and continued walking in circles. Private was twiddling his flippers and sitting in the corner, where he had been most of the day. The young penguin thought about how things were just over a week ago. The penguins would probally be on some sort of mission about now... exploring the zoo, searching for popcorn or some other unimportant task. He wished that they could go on a mission right now—all four of them.

Skipper was thinking the same thing. Just half a week ago he and his team were as close knit as any military squadron. Now, his explosives expert was AWOL and none of the remaining team members felt like doing much talking in the awkward atmosphere. He knew that even in this drab holding pen, his team would find something fun and interesting to do. They'd go on a mission, or—a mission. Oh, he missed the missions. He loved watching his team perform perfectly rehearsed moves while narrowly avoiding detection by Alice. He loved how it felt knowing that someone always had his back, no matter what the circumstance. Now, however, he felt cold and alone. His team had fallen apart, and he was unsure of what to do about it.

He wanted to crawl up into a ball and sit in one spot until everything went back to what it was—that was what he wanted.

"Skippah, are you hungry at all?" Private said, holding a fish up to the leader penguin. Skipper had not notice the small penguin walk over from his corner. "Alice just dropped some fish in." The leader penguin noticed he had been daydreaming for some time.

Skipper grabbed the trout, but his stomach did flips as he attempted to take a bite. "You can have my rations tonight, Private," He said.

"That's alright, I'm not very hungry myself." returned the younger penguin. Silence befell the two for some time.

"Skippah..." the special operation penguin said, looking up at his leader. "I-I..." he choked on his words. Skipper looked up at his penguin, and noticed the tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

"What is it, soldier?"

"I'm... I'm so sorry..." he said softly, choking back the tears that started to drip down his face anyway. Skipper was surprised, but all he could do was give a confused look. "I'm so sorry..."

"For what?" asked Skipper, unsure of how to handle his partner on the verge of a breakdown.

"I took that classified air pistol..." confessed the young penguin.

Skipper was taken aback, and he gasped. "What do you mean?"  
"I _did _take that Powershot gun that you said was classified," he choked.

"The Powerline 15XT?"

"Yeah, that."

Skipper lifted a flipper up to his head to scratch it in thought. He was surprised when he saw convulse with one of the hardest flinches he had ever seen out of the younger penguin. It made him suddenly feel guilty for always slapping Private when he did something out of military code.

"But... why? For what?" Skipper asked, continuing to keep his voice low so Kowalski couldn't hear them.

The younger penguin paused for a second, swallowed hard, and then spoke quickly. "Maurice came over one day when you and the others were out. He asked me what kind of weapons we penguins liked to use, so I showed him."

"You showed him our weapons? Private, that's..." Skipper's voice trailed off when he wondered why Maurice would ask such a question.

"He wasn't impressed with our wooden swords and explosives, because he said he had already saw us use them many times. Then he started mocking our team, saying that we were not very good because we couldn't use any other types of weapons." The young penguin took a breath.

"So you showed him the Powerline?"

"Yes."

"How did you know it even existed? You weren't supposed to know about that one for while."

"A few weeks ago I got up in the night and stepped on the trapdoor in the floor it was under. I noticed it sounded hollow, so I looked for a bit until I found that I could open it.

When Maurice said those things about our team, I opened the trap door and showed him the air gun. He was really impressed, and apologized for saying those things about our team. He left quickly afterwards."

"When did this happen, Private?" Skipper asked. He realized that the short penguin had broken several aspects of both military and penguin code... but he didn't care too much. Private knew the last piece to the puzzle and Skipper was determined to get it out of him.

"On the Wednesday before the party." he answered. It was true... Skipper, Kowalski and Rico had gone out to find some popcorn after not receiving much for the day. Private had asked to stay back to tidy up the HQ. That must have been when Private's story occurred.

Skipper thought a bit before continuing. "Why did you deliberately lie to me when I asked you about it?"

The a wave of fear and guilt flashed over the penguin's face, and then he spoke with a quavering voice. "I was afraid you were going to kick me off the team, Skipper!"

Skipper was surprised at his comrade's words. "Private..."

"Yes?" Private responded weakly, as if he feared what Skipper was about to say next.

"I would never kick you off this team, soldier." said Skipper. His words and tone of voice had a calming effect over his friend, and the small penguin smiled up at his leader, but the smile soon vanished.

"But I broke a lot of rules," he said.

"I know you did. And that's why you spent a day and a half inside that cage." Skipper explained. "Why do you think that you're not still being punished?"

Private's eyes opened wide. "I thought you had forgotten with all that's been going on."

"Private," said Skipper softly, "you're a key part of our team. Without you we wouldn't have been able to succeed on half the missions we've gone on." He put a consolidating flipper on his teammate's shoulder. "But most importantly... you're part of the family."

Private smiled at his leader's words, and his eyes changed from fear to happiness.

Skipper continued, removing his flipper from Private's shoulder. "Even though, I wish you would have told me this in the first place."

"I know... but I was so scared, I couldn't..."

"It doesn't matter," Skipper responded, cutting off Private. "but if you would have told me this right away, I could have solved this mystery a long time ago."

Private's eyes lit up, and Skipper assumed it was from the feeling of being relieved of the guilt that was probably eating him from the inside out. Although Skipper knew he should give Private some sort of more severe punishment, he knew it was not a good time to do so. His teammate was falling apart at the seems already, with the knowledge that one mistake had led to this extreme.

"What's going on?" Kowalski said suddenly. Skipper noticed the tall intellectual waddling over to him and Private.

"Private here has told me a very vital piece of information," Skipper said, putting his flipper back on Private's shoulder and offering a smile to the younger penguin.

"What?" Kowalski asked, looking a little confused.

"I know who killed Julien!" Skipper exclaimed, raising his flippers into the air. Both Kowalski and Private looked at him in confusion.

"Maelie?" Kowalski wondered.

"No, it's..." Skipper was unable to finish his words as a sudden, loud scream echoed up the air ventilation shaft. It was female, and Skipper recognized it almost immediately.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash as Maelie fell through the metal grate and onto the hard concrete floor. She was panting heavily and gripping her stomach with both hands.

"Help... me!" she heaved, sounding like she was in pain. The three penguins rushed over and helped her to her feet. Her fur was matted and rough looking, one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut and part of her ear was missing. She looked like she had been in a nasty fight.

"What..." Kowalski tried to say.

"Help me!" she screamed, falling onto Skipper, who caught her with his flippers. She regained her balance.

"What's wrong?" Skipper said. She glanced over her shoulder quickly. Skipper noticed how twitchy and tense she was.

"He's chasing me! He's going to kill me!" she heaved. Her voice no longer sounded sweet and cheerful as it had been when they first met—now it was hoarse and cracking, which lead Skipper to believe she had been screaming a lot. "You've got to help me!"

"Who's chasing you?" Skipper said firmly, grabbing Maelie by the arms and shaking her a little. He had a feeling he already knew, though.

"Hello there," a familiar, deep, dry voice said calmly from behind Skipper. All four of the animals standing in the room looked toward the air vent.

There stood a gray-furred, wide and short lemur. He was leaning up against the side of the vent and caressing a pocket knife in his paws. His large, yellow eyes were pointed directly into Skippers. They seemed to be radiating some form of evil Skipper had never seen before.

"Maurice?" Kowalski said, sounding very confused and shocked.


	13. Operation Timebomb

**I was trying to fix a typo and accidently replaced this chapter with chapter 9 for a bit. Sorry to everyone who opened this chapter and went "wtf?"  
AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AN**

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 13 - Operation Timebomb**

"I suppose she's already told you everything." Maurice said slyly, continuing to stare at Skipper from where he stood.

"What's your problem, Maurice?" Skipper asked, anger filling his voice. Maelie took a few steps back, while Private and Kowalski could do nothing but stand in awe.

"You four," he said, and began to finger the blade on his knife. Skipper suddenly recognized it—it was his favorite swiss army knife. Did the lemur enjoy stealing weapons? "When I kill Maelie and frame Private once again, it'll be game over."

Skipper gasped. He turned his head to the shaking mammal cowering behind him, and noticed that the paws that covered her hands were covered in blood. He looked back and Maurice and his knife and saw that the blade was covered in red.

"You're not getting at her until you go through us!" Private said aggressively.

"I'm smart enough to know I can't take all three of you at once." Maurice said, rolling his eyes.

Skipper scowled deeply. "Why'd you kill Julien, Maurice?" he asked bluntly.

The lemur suddenly looked shocked, but he still had a nasty grin on his face. "Accusing me of killing my _king_? How could you do such a thing?" he said sarcastically. After he finished he let out a deep, dark laugh.

"We're going to tell the whole Zoo _you _killed Julien!" Private said, his eyes filled with hatred.

"Yeah, go for it. Go get pummeled by the gorillas." Maurice returned. "All of the animals in this zoo are arranging a mob as we speak. They plan to force Private out of the zoo, or kill him if he refuses." Private gasped. Skipper was taken aback. "They won't believe a word you say, anymore. And, Skipper, I'd suggest you abandon him now."

"I'd never abandon one of my teammates, mammal," defended Skipper.

"Your choice. The animals are going to throw you out too for defending a murder..."

"Private didn't kill Julien! You did!" Skipper spat.

"Oh? What makes you think so?"

Skipper began to explain. "You started by getting Private to show you our most dangerous weapon—one that we should only use in life or death situations. You took advantage of his strong feelings of family for our team and tricked him into showing you where it was to defend us.

When Julien decided to have a party for Maelie's arrival, you took advantage of the confusion. After we left for the party, you sneaked into HQ and took the Powerline. Then, at the party, you used some sort of alcohol to get Julien drunk so he would be defenseless. You used it to get Kowalski drunk as well so his observation skills would be impaired. When the thunderstorm started, you took advantage of the distraction and mayhem to kill Julien while he was most vulnerable.

Oh, you didn't stop there, though. You slammed private over the head with a rock and knocked him unconscious so you could get his feathers to plant at the crime scene. You figured Private's wound would make it look like Julien had defended himself with that crowbar—but the crowbar would have left a puncture wound, not a welt.

Everyone fell for it. There were no witnesses, and everything was set up perfectly. You thought you'd get away with it."

Maurice applauded insincerely. "Nice job. Did you figure all that out yourself?" Skipper felt burning hatred building up inside of him.

"Why'd you do it, Maurice?" Private asked again, his voice sounding shaky. "What did Julien do to you?"

"That's not important," Maurice said, pointing the knife at the penguins, "what's important is that my plan finishes without a hitch."

"Like Private said before," Kowalski spoke, "You'll have to go through us to get to Maelie."

"I expected this." said the heavy lemur, sounding serious. "You penguins are so predictable."

Skipper clenched his flippers into tight fists and felt ready to charge at the evil Maurice. He was held back by the sight of the knife—a direct attack would not be a good idea. Maurice continued.

"And that's why I'm going to go kill Mort instead," he said calmly. He acted as if killing was a game.

"You wouldn't!" Maelie spoke, although weakly. She was still standing behind Skipper, trying to stem the flow of blood from her gut.

"I would. I'll still frame Private and he'll get thrown out of the zoo all the same." Maurice laughed again after confessing his plans. Skipper was suddenly worried for Mort.

"Don't do it, Maurice!" the leader penguin said firmly. "Poor Mort didn't do anything!" Maurice turned and started to leave, not responding to Skipper's words. He started slow at first and then moved fast. Skipper stood where he was until he heard the footsteps no longer.

"What are we going to do, Skippah?" Private asked, desperately. "We can't let him slaughter poor little Mort!"

"I know, Private." Skipper said, trying to calm down a little so he could think. "Kowalski, options."

"There's no time for that, Skipper!" Kowalski said, waving his flippers wildly. "We have to find Mort before Maurice does. It's his only hope!" Skipper nodded.

"What about Rico?" Private asked.

"No time for that!" Skipper said. "Private, you take Maelie to HQ and try to patch up her wounds. Kowalski, you and I will go to the lemur habitat and try to warn Mort." Kowalski nodded, moving for the exit.

Private wanted to go with Skipper and Kowalski, but he looked at Maelie, who was still bleeding profusely from her abdomen. He nodded, and grabbed the lemur's arm. Maelie flinched in pain, but he ignored it and pulled her toward the vent quickly. Skipper and Kowalski followed closely, and soon the group was outside.

The air outside was very still and chilly. It was cool on Skipper's face. The sky was illuminated in a fiery red explosion from a sunset on the western horizon. Between the buildings it was just visible, and it illuminated everything with an orange glow.

"Operation Save Mort is a-go!" Skipper declared, moving for an entrance to the tunnels beneath the zoo—the quickest way to get to the lemur habitat.

"Good luck, Skippah!" called Private as he and Kowalski slid away. Kowalski and Skipper saluted Private before they hopped into the tunnel. Private saluted back, and then began to lead the wounded Maelie to the penguin HQ.

They arrived shortly later, using a closer entrance to the tunnel system to get into the penguins' bunker. Maelie had trouble walking, and private could tell the pain she was feeling was excruciating. She winced with every step, and tensed with every breath. Her blood was now covering most of her abdomen and her legs—a sign that she had already lost a lot of blood. Private knew if he didn't stem the bleeding soon, she was going to loose consciousness.

"I'll be right back with some bandages." Private said as Maelie stumbled in and Private shut the door behind her. She nodded, then quickly took a seat against a wall near the door and began breathing deeply and slowly. to avoid the sharp, searing pain.

Private returned from another area of the HQ with some random pieces of cloth, fabric and a few safety pins. Maelie looked a bit confused.

"Sorry, but Rico has all of our medical supplies. This is all I could find." He explained.

"That's... OK..." the lemur wheezed, clearly showing that she was in a lot more pain now that her adrenaline had worn off.

"I'll have you patched up in a jiffy." assured Private. Maelie stood up. Private proceeded by first cleaning the wound and finding out that it wasn't very deep. It was deep enough to do some damage, but not nearly deep enough to hit any crucial organs. Next, he began wrapping Maelie's midsection with some of the old cloth, using the fabric to soak up blood and use as gauze. Each time Private touched the lemur's wound she winced or yelped, and Private swiftly apologized.

"Thank you so much for doing this, Private," Maelie said as Private continued to try to stop her bleeding.

"Just following orders, as all." Private commented.

"No, really." Maelie stated. Private looked up at her and stopped fumbling with the makeshift bandages. "I thought you might hate me for what I did."

"I never did." Private said, calmly. "You did the same thing I would have."

"Oh?" Maelie said, grunting as Private put pressure on her wound.

"Hold this here firmly." instructed Private. Maelie obeyed, holding a bundle of cloth to her wound to stem her bleeding. Private waited until he had finished her bandages by using the safety pins to fasten it in the back before he continued.

"If someone murdered Skippah, K'walski or Rico, and I didn't know who it was, I would have done the same thing. You suffered the loss of a really good friend, and you knew that he had been killed, you just wanted someone to blame."

Maelie looked uncomfortably at the ground. "Yeah... I guess so."

"You had a gap that needed to be filled." said Private deeply. "You needed someone to blame so you could be at peace with your best friend's passing." Private finished patching up Maelie as best as he could with what he had available. She looked a little strange, as the cloth Private used was multicolored. Some blood was already soaking through the fabric around her stomach.

Maelie still looked at the ground. Private noticed that she seemed to still be full of guilt. The lemur spoke first after a few seconds passed.

"Hey, thanks again for doing this. I didn't know how long I would have left if I kept bleeding like that!" she said. " How'd you learn to do this, anyway?" Private arched a brow at her suddenly changing the subject.

"Skippah was training me to be the team medic a while ago, but we didn't go very far with it." he explained. "Is something still bothering you?

Maelie sighed. "Well... I need to tell you what really happened. The whole story. Start to finish." Private's eyes expanded and he was filled with intrigue.

"Alright, go on then," he said eagerly. Maelie opened her mouth to begin, but another voice cut in before she could.  
"That won't be necessary, Maelie." the deep voice said sternly. Both Private and Maelie whipped there heads around to see Maurice standing in the doorway

"Alright, we're almost to the lemur exhibit now." Kowalski said, navigating the tunnels. Skipper nodded, and proceeded to use his momentum to slide on his belly for a distance. When he saw the familiar storm drain letting light into the dark tunnel system, he stopped and waddled to it as fast as his short legs could. Time was of the essence if they wanted to save Mort.

"Skipper... how do we know if Mort _is _in the lemur exhibit?" Kowalski said suddenly, making Skipper stop and turn around.

"We don't. But that's the most likely place, don't you think?" He returned, then continued toward the lemur exit. Kowalski followed.

Skipper really did hope Mort was in the Lemur exhibit; he couldn't let the little ringtail die. He couldn't let the deranged predator get to his pray. The little lemur didn't deserve to die... and not for the reasons that Maurice was going to kill him for.

Skippered waddled closer, looking at the ladder. Kowalski followed closely. When they were nearly directly under the storm drain, a figure suddenly became slightly visible deeper down the tunnel.

"Maurice!" Skipper shouted, although he was barely able to see the figure's outline in the faint light. They had not caught up with the lemur on the way to their destination, and Skipper figured the deranged mammal had took another route. He knew the tunnels were the quickest way around the zoo, and he figured the ringtail would not be able to navigate the tunnel system to Kowalski's ability. Getting to Mort first was Skipper's first idea, but now stopping Maurice before he even got to Mort was a better idea.

The figure turned around, looking at the two penguins standing by the storm drain.

"Kowalski," Skipper said quietly to his taller teammate. "Get ready to charge on the count of three. Kowalski nodded.

"One. Two. Three!" Skipper charged, closely followed by his comrade. He let out a cry of rage as he felt the adrenaline flow through his veins. That bastard was going to pay for what he did!

Skipper thought he had him. He lunged, thinking he caught the mammal off guard. He was in for a surprise when his face met a hard surface. The penguin fell to the floor, dazed. He rubbed his beak; the wall hadn't been there a second ago. Kowalski gasped and Skipper looked around at him. The penguin had obviously seen the obstacle before Skipper and stopped. The one wall didn't make Kowalski gasp though—it was the fact that they were walled in on all four sides now.

"What in the name of—we've been trapped!" said the leader penguin, frustrated. His face was throbbing after slamming into the wall at full speed. Someone had dropped a heavy plastic crate on them when they got under it. Skipper now saw that it wasn't completely solid, but it was made of a sort of lattice work.

"Maurice!" He said under his breath, frustrated.

"Skipper, help me lift this thing up!" Kowalski was already posed on one side of the crate and was ready to attempt to heave it off of the pair. Skipper got up and walked over to same wall.

The two heaved several times, their grunts filling the stale sewer air. It was no use, though; they couldn't get the crate to move more than an inch even with their combined efforts.

"It's no use, Kowalski!" Skipper cried, throwing up his flippers. Kowalski put a flipper to his beak, trying to think.

"_Uhh_!" an all too familiar, low, raspy voice spoke. Skipper looked up at the figure he forgot was still there, and was awestruck with surprise. "_No team!_"

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN**

**Thanks for all the reviews! It seems that the last chapter sparked reviews from quite a few readers =) I love to hear what you think, so keep R&Ring!**

I've had this chapter finished for about two days but havn't been able to post it because fanfiction kept giving me errors when i tried to upload it. Sorry!


	14. The Fight for Life

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 14 - The Fight for Life**

"Rico!" Skipper said, sounding relieved. "I thought you were Maurice or one of those crazy zoo animals." He gripped two bars on the crate and leaned forward to get a better look at his explosives expert. "Now how's about you help us out of here?"  
Rico stood in silence for a few moments, staring at his inconsiderate leader. Then he softly shook his head.

"What?" said Skipper, shocked. "Why not?"

"_No Team!_" the Penguin grunted softly, and then turned around to leave. Skipper, wide eyed and confused, couldn't help but look at his only means of saving Mort walking away from him. Suddenly, his mind cleared and he remembered what had happened that morning.

"Rico! Wait!" He cried out. The penguin halted for a second, but then continued walking. Skipper's heart sank. He didn't know what to say. "Rico! Please come back!"

Rico stopped and turned around this time, glaring at his leader. His eyes were full of something Skipper had never seen in the large penguin's eyes before—hatred. Hatred towards him. He had hoped he would never see the day he screwed up so badly as to make Rico stare at him with that look in his eyes.

"Rico..." Skipper said, looking directly into his explosive expert's eyes. He spoke clearly but weakly. "I'm sorry."

Rico looked surprised at first, then tilted his head at his leader in confusion. Kowalski stood quietly to Skipper's side and listened.

"I shouldn't have been so hard on you..." confessed Skipper. He hoped the penguin wouldn't think he was sounding sarcastic, as he often was. "You didn't deserve what I did to you."

"_Uhh!_" Rico grunted, waddling back to the makeshift prison. Skipper noticed he no longer looked angry—but hurt. His true emotions had just been covered by anger. The heavyset penguin wasn't angry at his leader at all; he was simply hurt. Skipper averted his eyes from Rico's and looked at the ground. The stare from him now seemed to burn into him even worse than when he was filled with rage.

"I was so hard on you during training the last few days..." He choked on his words for a second. "I did it because I was scared, Rico." Skipper could feel hot tears forming in his eyes, and he tried his best to hold them back.

Kowalski seemed a little confused at this point, and Rico was listening with intent.

"I had a dream a few nights back." explained Skipper. "That you, Kowalski, and Private were all killed buy some sort of intruder. In my dream I was too _afraid _to help any of you, and I watched you all get slaughtered." Skipper clenched his eyes shut tight to keep the tears from streaking down his feathered face. "I watched you all get slaughtered... and I did nothing..."

Rico heard his leader's voice quiver with the last sentence. He knew his leader was on the verge of breaking down. He had never seen Skipper in this state before. Rico knew that the leader penguin's words were sincere.

Attempting to gather his composure, Skipper continued. "I was so afraid, that I thought going hard on you and the others would make you better able to defend yourself. I went so hard on you because I thought I was too weak. I thought making you stronger would make me stronger. I'm so sorry."

Several moments of silence passed. Kowalski was surprised at Skipper's confession, although he knew that it was the truth. He remembered the night Skipper fell out of his bunk and woke him up by screaming out his name. Rico was awe stricken—he had not expected his hardened leader to break up so easily. Skipper had just spilled his guts in order to apologize to him, and he knew that was not an easy thing for the military penguin to do. Skipper suddenly broke the awkwardness.

"And our last combat session... I went too far. It wasn't training to me anymore. I was fighting as if you were a real enemy... I saw you as if you were the intruder in my dream. I'm sorry for that too. I shouldn't have kept going even when you bested me." Skipper seemed to have regained his composure to some extent, and was no longer on the brink of crying. He was looking back at Rico, who was beginning to sympathize for his leader.

Skipper's voice sounded calm once again. "Rico, you're a very vital part of our team. Without you our teams would be incomplete. More importantly, you're one of our family, and we just wouldn't be one without you! I'm sorry for everything."

"_Aww..._" purred Rico. He still looked hurt, but now he averted his eyes from Skipper's.

"What's wrong?" Skipper asked, hoping he hadn't hurt his explosives expert even more.

Rico pointed to the crate, and then spoke a raspy word. "_Maur'ce_." Skipper wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to say.

"Rico, did Maurice tell you to set this trap for us?" Kowalski said, speaking for the first time since they had been trapped. Rico nodded wildly. Skipper was not sure why Rico would listen to Maurice, but after what had happened with Private and the air pistol, and Skipper being cruel to him during practice, he probably believed anything the corrupt lemur told him. After all, Rico didn't know anything that they knew yet.

"Newsflash, Rico." Skipper said, suddenly seriously. "Maurice was the one who killed Julien, not Maelie. Now he's on his way to kill Mort and frame Private for it."

The heavyset penguin looked surprised at first, but then was unsure.

"Please, Rico! It's the truth!" Kowalski begged. Skipper hoped his explosives expert would believe him.

"Help us get out of here so we can save Mort!" Skipper said, almost in the form of a command.

"Please!"

Rico didn't show any emotion before turning around and walking away from the pair in the crate. Skipper wasn't sure what he was doing, but soon he was just a faint outline again. He hoped the penguin wasn't going to abandon them there.

Suddenly, Skipper heard some grunts and the crate was slowly lifted a few inches off the ground. When it had reached about a foot, both penguins were able to slide underneath it. The crate quickly crashed to the ground following them leaving, and Rico emerged from the shadow again, smiling.

"Thanks, soldier. I'll explain the whole story later. For now, we have to save Mort!" Skipper said, seriously.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Maurice, what are you doing here?" Private growled, getting into a defensive stance. Maelie looked in horror at the wide lemur standing in the doorway, caressing Skipper's swiss army knife.

Maurice laughed. "You ask a lot of obvious questions, you know that?" Private scowled and his face twisted up with anger. His heart began to beat faster and his muscles tensed, ready for the fight he knew was going to come.

"You were going after Mort..." Maelie said weakly. She was severely fatigued from her major loss of blood, and was in serious pain from the stab wound.

"I can't believe you fell for that." said Maurice, rolling his eyes. "Mort doesn't know anything that could let the truth get out. Not like you do." He pointed to Maelie, who was breathing heavily.

Private looked back at the female lemur and then looked forward at Maurice. It made sense. Maurice was targeting Maelie because she knew that he was the one who killed Julien. He and the other penguins knew that as well, but Maurice had seen to it that the penguins' reputations were destroyed and nobody would believe them. They would believe Maelie on the other hand. She was the last thing that was of any threat to the deranged murderer.

"So you need to get rid of the last piece of evidence against you?" Private snarled.

"That's the plan." Maurice said. The fact that he was completely calm even when talking about murdering another animal sickened Private. "And what a perfect set-up. My target and the guy I want to frame in the same room."

"You're not getting away with this, Maurice!" Private shouted. He wanted to attack the mammal... but he knew that charging directly at him while he was wielding that knife was not a good idea. He would have to disarm the lemur somehow before he could attack.

"Oh? Then why have I in the past?" Maurice responded.

"You... what?" Private said, confused suddenly.

"Remember that time I got 'sick with power' after eating what you thought was rotten lychee nuts? Well it turns out those nuts don't actually make you power hungry. That's just an old legend.

I got Julien drunk that night. I was planning to kill him right then, but the stupid zoo keepers came in and took him out before I could do anything. So instead of wasting all the confusion, I took the time to see just how far I could go. I managed to bring the zoo to it's knees in the matter of a day, didn't I?"

Private didn't know what to say. Seeing how speechless his audience was, Maurice continued.

"It's amazing how gullible you all are. I blamed it on that old legend and you all believed me, so I got away with it unnoticed. The zoo hospital gave Julien some guavaberry smoothie because it calms him down—not because it counters the so called _effects _of the nuts. You thought you cured me by spraying me with it, but I only acted like it cured me because I knew that Julien was back on his feet and I would have to wait until my next chance to try to kill him."

The young penguin gulped. The lemur had played them all for fools, attempting a murder right under their noses and then blaming it on some lousy false legend. They had all fell for it. If they had been smarter, they could have caught him right then and Julien would still be alive.

"Why... Why'd you do it, Maurice?" Private asked, a little amount of fear showing through his voice. He was trying to buy as much time as he could until Maurice let his defense down.

"Maelie can tell you." Maurice said. Maelie looked at Private and explained.

"He thinks that he was supposed to be king of the Lemurs instead of Julien, and he thinks that if he got rid of Julien he would be able to take over."

"You know that I _was_ going to be King. Until Julien cheated, of course." Maurice said, sounding as if the memory angered him. Private was confused, but he got the general idea.

"Julien didn't cheat. He defeated you in combat and proved that he was a more worthy lemur for the throne." Maelie sneered. She seemed to have regained some of her strength. She was standing next to private now, her paws clenched into tight fists.

Maurice suddenly spoke loudly, pointing at Maelie. His eyes seemed to cloud over with rage. "_I _was supposed to be king! _I _was supposed to wear that crown. _I _was supposed to be the one ordering _Julien _around!"

Private noticed his grip slacken on the handle of the swiss army knife. Not knowing if he would get another chance to strike, he charged at full speed. Maurice noticed the small penguin coming at him, but it was too late. He had been detracted and the penguin preformed a perfect roundhouse and knocked the knife clean out of the lemur's hand.

"Oh? So I'll have to kill you too?" growled Maurice, cracking his knuckles. "Well if this is how it's got to be."

"Run, Maelie!" cried Private before Maurice charged. The Lemur came straight at Private and threw a fist at his head, but the swift penguin ducked and countered Maurice in the gut. He wheezed and stumbled backwards but regained his balance.

The evil mammal smirked, and it made rage surge through Private's body. He began shaking slightly and he could feel his mind start to cloud. He had to maintain focus—blind fury would not win this one.

Meanwhile, Maelie was making her way to the fishbowl exit, grunting in pain with every step she took. Something caught her attention as she walked, though. On a table not far from the exit, there lay a small object that reflected the light it shown back into her eyes.

Private was busy deflecting Maurice's blows. He was a large and possessed great strength, but he was also swift and quick. The small penguin knew the lemur had to have had hand to hand combat training before—he was having trouble.

Knowing the that situation wouldn't end well, Private grabbed Maurice's arm as he swung and twisted it with one flipper, then used the other one to chop him in the gut. Once again, Maurice was thrown off balance. Private didn't waste this opportunity, however, and continued to land blows on the Lemur's body and face. Maurice used his arms to shield his head, and at his first opening used his foot to trip the unsuspecting Private.

Private was thrown off his feet, but he caught himself and went into a roll. He sprang back up just in time to see the deranged lemur charge at him and swing his fist full force in a run. He had no time to dodge it this time, however, and he held up his flippers to block the blow. It had more force then he thought, though, and when it contacted with his flipper a sickening crack filled the air. The power of the blow had shattered Private's thin wing bones and sent him flying backwards, dazed with pain.

Maurice walked over to the stunned penguin, leaned over, and picked him up by the throat. Private felt his feet begin to leave the floor and the grip tighten on this throat. He grabbed on to one of Maurice's paws with his good flipper and attempted to pry it off, but it was no good. Soon spots began to dance in front of his eyes. In a last hope he kicked his foot out full force. It contacted with the lemur's diaphragm and it knocked the air clean out of the lemur. He let go of Private who quickly gulped in several mouthfuls of air.

Private didn't think that he would be able to hold of the lemur for very much longer. His left flipper was broken and he was already feeling fatigued. Knowing the fight wasn't going to end well for him, he started to plot his escape when he saw Maelie across the room fumbling with something on a table.

"Maelie! Run!" he cried again. The female lemur looked up and then back down. "Get out of here!" Private was caught unaware by a fist to the side of his face, sending him flying to his right. His vision spun for a second, but it settled and he hopped back up.

"_Get out of here!_" mocked Maurice in Private's accent. Then he laughed. Private threw a flipper at the lemur's face and slapped him, stunning him and sending him stumbling a few steps away. Private spun around to his front side and used his good flipper to elbow him in the chest, and then spun back around. The small penguin let out a cry as he attempted to roundhouse kick the lemur again, but he was caught off gaurd when Maurice grabbed his foot out of midair.

The deranged mammal used the leverage to flip Private, who landed on the corner of a ledge and felt the air forced from his lungs. He gasped for air, leaving himself vulnerable on the ground. Maurice took advantage of it by grabbing the pocket knife from where it lay on the ground returning to Private, who was struggling to get up.

"You're weak," Maurice snarled, whipping Private with the handle of the blade. Private was becoming too weak to continue defending himself and Maurice's subsequent blows knocked him back down. He tried to get up again, but his body gave up on him and he fell onto his back.

"Maelie... Run..." he wheezed weakly. He could taste blood in his mouth and his vision was blurred from tears and a concussion.

"I'll deal with her in a second," Maurice said, standing over the defeated penguin. Without much of a warning, Maurice turned the blade upside down and jabbed it swiftly downward. Private managed to grab the lemurs wrists with his own and stop its decent. He pushed with all of his strength but his broken flipper gave out and the knife slowly made its way towards his chest.

"Maelie!" He cried out desperately. Maurice was too strong for him and his other flipper gave out, letting the knife slide smoothly into the penguin's exposed chest. He let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain and shock. The the sharp blade stopped for a moment, then Maurice forced it further into the penguin's chest. He chuckled as Private emitted only a low gurgling noise as the knife punctured his lung.

Maurice continued by slowly removing the knife from his victims chest and posing it for another strike. He was smiling, his eyes filled with madness. The lemur deranged and insane—he enjoyed watching Private squirm as his body went into shock.

He was ready to shove the knife down again when suddenly there was a loud pop and his arm was hit by something moving fast. He felt the bones shatter and the knife dropped out of his hand, clattering to the ground near Private. He let out a demonic cry of pain and rage, then turned to look at what had hit him.

Standing across the room was Maelie, holding the Powerline 15XT and looking up at the deranged lemur in disbelief. She was shaking wildly, but kept the gun steady. She seemed shocked at what she had just done.

Maurice let out another battle cry, and then scooped up his life. He charged at the lemur with all of his might. Maelie closed her eyes and looked away. She depressed the trigger and...

Bang. She heard nothing but a slight whimper and the sound of metal banging against the floor. She pulled the trigger again.

**Bang.** The sound echoed around the room. She pulled the trigger again, her eyes still tightly closed.

**Bang. **

**Bang.**

**Bang.**

**Bang.**

**Click. Click. Click. **She pulled the trigger even though there was no shot to be fired. Slowly, she looked up.

Not more than a foot from her face was Maurice's, twisted in pain and shock. His body was riddled with bullet holes that blood was already beginning to trickle from. He slowly fell to his knees and then onto his stomach in front of her. He emitted a slight gurgling sound and then fell silent.

Maelie opened her paws and let the Powerline fall onto Maurice's unmoving body. She found it hard to breathe; her breaths came in short and choppy bursts. Her mind was still processing what had just happened. It was all over too fast for her to know what really had happened.

Was it all finally over? Had it really have to have come to this?

Suddenly, the door to to the penguins' HQ burst open and Skipper, Kowalski and Rico jumped in. The assumed combat positions but fell apart when they saw the body laying on the ground in front of them. Maurice's eyes looked up at them, still filled with shock.

"What happened here?" Skipper asked, his body shaking.

**AN ~~~~~ AN**

**Woah that was one intense chapter to write =D. It was also the longest one I have ever written.**

**I hope you're enjoying the story. R&R please! Oh, and check back later. This isn't the last chapter, I swear!**


	15. Last Hope

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 15 - Last Hope**

Skipper felt icy darts run up and down his spine at the sight of the lifeless body laying on the ground in front of him. He shuttered and turned his head away from the eyes that still seemed to glare at him.

"We're too late!" Kowalski stated.

"I...I..." Maelie muttered. She was still staring at Maurice laying in front of her. She began shaking violently, loosing her balance and falling backwards, eyes never leaving the dead lemur.

"_ugh!_" Rico suddenly rasped. "_P-private!"_ He quickly waddled over to the corner of the Headquarters where Private's unmoving body lay.

"Oh, no!" Skipper gasped, moving to where Rico now was kneeling next to his fallen comrade. "Private..."

The young cadet's eyes looked blank and his beak was slightly cracked open, allowing the slightest trickle of blood to drain out of it. Skipper realized how he looked just like Julien had when he saw the lemur's body laying in the bushes. He could feel his eyes starting to well up with tears.

This couldn't be happening. Private _couldn't_ be dieing! He couldn't!

Rico suddenly let loose a loud, hoarse cry of pain and sadness. He sounded like he was choking on his breaths as he took them in. He was visibly quivering.

Kowalski, who looked on the brink of tears, walked over and knelt next to Rico. He placed the side of his head to Private's torn chest and listened closely.

"Skipper!" He cried suddenly, turning his head to look at his unstable leader, "He has a pulse!"

Skipper felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders; Private was still alive. The weight came back as soon as he glanced back at the young penguin's wound.

"We've got to get this patched up!" Kowalski continued. Rico, who calmed down a little, responded by regurgitating a spool of bandage and a few other medical supplies the penguins kept just in case. Kowalski grabbed them from the ground and was about to start attempting to close the wound when Skipper stopped him.

"We don't have the right tools to do something like this!" He stated seriously but shakily. "We've got to get him to the doctor!"

Kowalski looked at the leader penguin and spoke. "The zoo has been closed for a while now, nobody is there anymore!" His voice had a sense of panicking in it that Skipper only heard from the intellectual when he could not think clearly.

"It's our only hope!" Skipper returned, throwing up his flippers. "Sitting here arguing won't do a bit of good. We've got to move! Rico, help me carry Private." The heavyset penguin responded quickly by moving over to Private's feet and grabbing onto them. Skipper walked around to his head and grabbed onto his arms near the shoulders. Together they lifted the small penguin up and started making their way out of the HQ through the main door. However, Kowalski went in a different direction through the fish plaque exit.

Maelie was finally beginning to get a hold on reality once more. She looked at the the penguins leaving and followed, knowing they would need her help to get to the animal hospital in time.

Skipper and Rico managed to get carry Private for some distance but his limp body soon began to grow heavier and neither penguin could continue for very long. They wouldn't be able to continue all the way to the clinic this way. It was on the other side of the zoo and they needed to get there before it completely shut down. They needed a better plan.

Right when Skipper noticed that Kowalski was now missing, the a manhole above them opened and the intellectual's face could be seen in the failing evening light.

"Good, I caught you!" He said. "Hoist Private up."

Skipper complied without asking why. It was awkward, but they managed to lift Private all the way up to Kowalski. With a display of strength, he managed to pull Private's limp body onto the surface. Skipper and Rico quickly jumped out of the tunnel after Private was safely above ground.

"Alright now help me get Private into the cart!" Kowalski said, already ready to lift his comrade up again. Skipper looked and noticed a zoo golf cart, engine already running, only a few feet from them.

"Kowalski, you're a genius!" Skipper exasperated. Rico and Kowalski were already moving Private to the cart, quickly but gently. Skipper slid over to the cart and climbed onto the floor of the vehicle.

Together they were able to hoist Private once again. They were unable to get him all the way onto the seat, but they Skipper stayed with him on the floor of the cart. Kowalski took the wheel of the cart and Rico operated the petals. They had used this method many times many times before to operate the zoo golf carts.

"Hang in there, soldier," Skipper said to the unconscious Private as the cart began to move. They quickly gained speed and began to make excellent progress through the Zoo. Kowalski's excellent motor skills and Rico's quick reaction times made it possible for the two to navigate around the many obstacles.

The group rounded a building when suddenly Kowalski shouted, "Hit the brakes!"  
Rico complied, slamming the brake pedal to the floor. The cart skidded to a halt, turning sideways and nearly flipping over. Private was nearly flung off the cart from the force, but Skipper held onto him.

"Status report, Kowalski!" Skipper called up to the tall strategist.

"You will want to see this for yourself." He returned. Skipper hopped up to the seat and his heart sunk at what he saw in front of him.

The entire area in front of them was full of animals, blocking them from getting to the the zoo veterinarian clinic only one hundred feet away from them. Most of the animals were there: the gorillas, the chimps, the elephants, and several groups of small animals. Some were holding tools that the zookeepers used to maintain the zoo, obviously with the intention of using them as weapons.

"No..." Skipper said quietly. The entire way was blocked with armed animals glaring at them and getting ready to attack. Skipper could hear many shouts from the group about Private. Skipper hopped up onto the hood of the golf cart and began shouting as loud as he could.

"Get out of the way!" he pleaded with the animals. "We have to get Private to the doctor!" The animals quieted down a bit at Skipper speaking and they all glared at him.

"Oi, why would we listen to you blokes?" Joey the kangaroo said, gripping a garden rake in his paws and looking furious.

"Private's been stabbed! He's going to die if we don't get him to the doctor before it's too late." returned Skipper, hoping the animals would listen. They were burning vital seconds sitting here while Private was taking his last breaths.

"Private's a murder!" shouted a flamingo. Many sounds of agreement came from the crowd."Private didn't... Look! We don't have time for this. Please, he's dieing!" Skipper returned. The animals didn't look like they would be complying with Skipper's request anytime soon.

"Good riddance." outed an animal near the back of the crowd.

"Private was framed!" Skipper fought. The riot wasn't pleased with his words, and they began to grow loud again.

"We don't want your lies," said one of the elephants. "we want you and your murderer out of our zoo!"

"Please! Maurice was the one who killed Julien." explained the leader penguin. The animals in the crowd responded as though they didn't believe a word he was saying. Maurice was right—the angry mob wasn't going to stop until Private was banished... or dead. Many of the animals continued to move closer to the cart, posing their various weapons and ready to strike.

Suddenly, another zoo cart whipped around the corner the penguins had just rounded. Skipper heard the squeal from the tires as it skidded out of control. It slammed into the side of the penguins' cart and a lemur was thrown from the driver's seat into the other cart.

Maelie scrambled to her feet, payed no heed to Kowalski or Rico and stood up next to Skipper on the front of the vehicle.

"Please, let Skipper get through! Private is going to die unless the doctor sees him!" She yelled in much the same way Skipper. Hearing the words from her mouth had a soothing effect on the crowd. "Private didn't kill Julien! He was framed, Maurice did it!"

Suddenly a lot of faces in the mob changed from expressions of anger to expressions of concern. A few animals lowered their weapons and began to move to the side. Maelie was the one who had spread the rumors about Private in the first place. After hearing her say what contradicted what she had said before, they were more convinced. What was even more convincing, however, was the bloodstained bandage wrapped around her body. Soon, a wide enough path was cleared for the cart.

"Rico, gas it." Skipper heard Kowalski call from the driver's seat. They proceeded quickly, nearly knocking Skipper and Maelie off of the cart. They grabbed onto latches to keep themselves from flying off.

"Thank goodness you showed up!" exclaimed Skipper. Maelie nodded silently, a serious look on her face.

--------------------------------------------------

The veterinarian slowly made his way out of the office, sipping a cup of coffee and holding some papers in his other hand. He walked out the door of the clinic, turning to lock it.

It had been another long day. The tall Indian man couldn't wait to get home to see his wife and kids. He calmly locked the door, and suddenly he heard a loud screech behind him. Startled, he spun around spilling coffee on his white shirt.

What he saw amazed him; one of the zoo golf carts stopped not far from him. He became scared when he saw no one in the driver's seat and not a soul around who could have been driving it. A chill ran up and down his spine, and he slowly began backing away. What he saw next amazed him more than the vacant cart. A group of animals was crowded behind the cart and chattering loudly. Unsure of how all the zoo animals got out, he slowly inched towards the emergency animal control phone posted on the wall not far from where he was.

Unexpectedly there was suddenly an explosion not far from his feet. He jumped and nearly lost his balance, catching himself on the wall behind him. He looked down to see what had made the loud noise and saw three penguins and a lemur standing, looking up at him. What was odd was the lemur was wrapped it what looked like bandages!

He recognized them—they gave him trouble each time it was time for their checkups. One of them always seemed to run away but show up later that day, and usually he lost consciousness sometime during the day. He wasn't sure how or why, but he did. He looked at the one that was nearest to him... its eyes looked sad and wet. But wait, penguins can't cry.

The penguins inched closer and he noticed that two of the penguins were holding another penguin, one that he hadn't noticed before. He grimaced when he saw its bloodstained feathers and the gash on its chest. He knelt down, setting his papers on the ground, and looked closer at the small penguin.

He wasn't sure how the penguin had gotten it, but he had an openly bleeding chest wound and he could tell the penguin had fallen unconscious from shock. He was even more unsure about how the animals knew to bring it to him, or even where to find him! It didn't matter though, the small bird was loosing blood fast and if he didn't act now it would only have a few more minutes to live.

"Come here you," he said, reaching down and scooping up the wounded soldier from his comrades' arms. He checked for a pulse, and upon finding one made his way back into the clinic he had been so eager to leave only a few minutes ago.

**AN ~~~~~~~~ AN**

**Sorry about the time it took to get this chapter out. I was pretty busy all weekend so I didn't get much of a chance to write until now. I _should _have this finished by the end of the week though (emphasis on should) **

**As always, thanks for reading and reviewing! This was a fairly unimportant transitional chapter until the next one, so I'm sorry if it didn't relieve any suspense :p**


	16. The Road Ahead

**Death in the Zoo  
Chapter 16 - The Road Ahead**

Skipper sat on the windowsill of an open window, watching his unconscious teammate lay on a table on the other side of the room. It had been several hours since they had rushed Private into the veterinarian's clinic, and the air was now cool and crisp. The whole place seemed eerily silent... much like the night after Julien had died. The penguin noticed the lack of emergency sirens and cars on the streets.

The animal doctor had done everything he could for Private. His assistances had all gone home and most of his equipment was put away for the night, so he had not been able to do as much as Skipper had hoped. In the operating room, the veterinarian first had used some antibiotics to ward off infection, then he removed one of Private punctured lung using a steady hand and a sharp knife. Skipper had watched the whole incident, cringing when he saw the man poking around in Private's chest. When the doctor had finished with that procedure, he did his best to sow up the gaping wound and stem the bleeding. He couldn't do much about Private's internal bleeding though, that would have to stop on its own.

Now Skipper looked down at his fallen comrade laying in a bed much like the one the team had found Julien playing in when he had visited the clinic. The penguin's face looked peaceful; his eyes no longer were open in blank, but rather closed as if he was sleeping. Skipper liked the sound of that. Private was sleeping, that's all.

"You haven't left his side since he got here," Maelie stated. Skipper looked over to see the female lemur climbing up onto the windowsill next to him. He would normally have been startled at the voice, but he was quite done with the feeling of being scared.

"No penguin left behind," Skipper returned, solemnly. He looked back at Private, listening to the quiet beeps from the heart monitor not far from him. His pulse was slow but steady. "I'm not leaving until he wakes up."

Maelie let a few moments of silence pass between them before responding. "That's very caring of you."

"Yeah."

"Where's Rico and Kowalski?" The lemur asked. She still looked terrible, but the swelling of her eye had gone down and her bleeding had ceased.

"They went back to HQ," he explained. "To do something about Maurice's body." Maelie nodded, then looked over at the wounded bird.

"He was very brave." Maelie said after a moment. "He defended me all on his own, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to hold off Maurice forever."

"He's always been like that." commented Skipper.

"Yeah?"

"Yup. He never backs down when a friend is going to get hurt." the penguin explained. Maelie looked uneasy a the word 'friend'.

"I still don't know why he considers me a friend," Maelie said, "I used him to save my own skin."

Skipper looked up once again at the mammal, this time a little surprised with his new friend's words. "What do you mean?"

Maelie took a deep breath. "The reason I came here was because I knew that Maurice was going to try to get back at Julien some day. I didn't know to what extent, but I knew that Julien was too naïve and gullible to realize it. I found all of Maurice's stuff at the party... the alcohol, fake blood and even the pistol."

She paused for a second, staring into the dark room.

"Go on," Skipper urged.

"I tried to sneak it all away and dump it into a dumpster, but Maurice caught me. He tried to throw a rock at me, but I ducked and it hit Private by accident. Then he grabbed the pistol and held it to my head, saying that he would kill me if I said anything to anyone. I was scared, but I knew that his target was Julien, not me. I remained calm and followed his orders.

He told me to pluck some feathers from Private and ruffle him up a little. He thought I didn't know what he was really up to, but I did. As soon as I got away from him I went to warn Julien, but he wouldn't do anything because he was so drunk. I tried to drag him away, but I fell directly into Maurice's trap. I tried to fight him but he was too powerful for me."

Skipper marveled at Maelie's words. So the brown hairs they found at the crime scene had in fact been Maelie's, left there from the struggle.

"And he used the Powerline to kill Julien?" Skipper suggested. Maelie nodded.

"Then he told me that I didn't tell everyone that Private was the one who did it, he was going to kill me." Maelie said, finishing her story. "I complied to save my own life... but I very nearly cost Private his."

"You should have come and told us earlier. We would have believed you."

"I know... but I was so scared." she said sadly, closing her eyes. Skipper didn't want to admit it, but he could relate to how she was feeling. He decided to get off the subject.

"You said something about knowing that Maurice was going to get back at Julien," he said. "Why?"

Maelie took another deep breath and looked back into the darkness. "About three years ago on Madagascar, we had a very kind old king. One day he was stricken with an illness and passed away a few days later. As we had been doing for as long as we could remember, the lemur elders set up a trial for any lemur who thought he or she was good enough to become leader.

Not many tried... it was a very grueling and rough journey through the deepest jungle in dangerous areas. Two of the group were Maurice and Julien. Maurice had been raised by one of the most combat savvy lemurs in all of our group—and he showed it. He was built for surviving the tough trials. Julien, on the other hand, didn't really have any skills. He pledged to the challenge out of stupidity and want.

Maurice made quick work of the competition as soon as it started. Before the group of lemurs even set out into the wilderness, Maurice blackmailed most of the competitors and they all dropped out. Julien, of course, didn't believe any of Maurice's threats and stayed in, leaving only him and Maurice.

The two of them disappeared into the jungle for three days, then returned. They had equally completed the challenges set by the elders and by some miracle Julien was still in the running. The fact that they both survived made the elders choose to have them fight as a form of a tiebreaker.

You see, when Maurice was very nearly an adult his Parents were eaten by a pack of fossa. He couldn't bare the loss, and his hate soon grew for everyone. He felt like he couldn't trust anyone and he felt as though it was everyone's fault that his parents were killed. If he had become king, he would have surely destroyed our civilization and we all would have been slaughtered by the fossa."  
She paused for a second.

"So what happened at the fight?" Skipper asked, enveloped in the lemur's story.

"Of course Julien got the crap beat out of him. He couldn't defend himself in any way, and Maurice would have won easily if I hadn't stepped in." Maelie explained.

"What did you do?"

"I climbed to a high branch and threw a durian at Maurice, which knocked him out. The elders were confused but took it as a sign from the Sky Spirits that Julien was meant to be king."

Skipper looked at the lemur sitting next to him. Her eyes seemed to be blank and distant as she reminisced. Maelie continued.

"When Maurice woke up, he wasn't very happy," she said. "He was even less happy when Julien made him his royal assistant to the throne for being such a 'good sport'. And every little thing Julien did to annoy him from day one has only added to his hate."  
"So he plotted his revenge?" Skipper commented.

"Yes. I had no idea he would go to this extreme, though." Maelie said, seeming to return mentally.

"That lemur was deranged," Skipper said softly. "He was going to snap one day."

Maelie sighed. "He did, but now he's dead." She suddenly looked unnerved and she looked at her feet. "I killed him."

Skipper wasn't sure how to respond at first. He hadn't really thought of it before; Maelie had ended Maurice's life with the air pistol. He was so full of hatred each time he saw the lemur, even the sight of his lifeless form had repulsed him. Now his mind was more clear, and he wondered if Maelie was indeed a murderer now too.

"Yeah you did," Skipper returned finally. "But it was either him or you."

Maelie sighed again. She was not taking the idea that she had actually ended someone's life well. Skipper continued.

"Maurice had already killed Julien, very nearly killed Private and was about to kill you." he explained. "If you hadn't pulled that trigger, you would be lifeless on the floor. You killed Maurice to protect yourself and Private."

Skipper words seemed to have a calming effect on the dark furred lemur, and she looked up him. Her green eyes were moist and she sounded as though she was on the brink of tears as she spoke. "I just wish I could have done that to save Julien..."

"You did all that you could." consoled the leader penguin. "You even came all the way here from Madagascar to try to protect him." Maelie nodded, her eyes seeming to light up a little.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Once again the eerie silence of the night enclosed in on the pair. Skipper listened to the soft rhythm of the heart monitor and thought about what he had just heard. He knew the lemur wished that her story didn't have to end the way it did—he that sense it in her voice. She wished Julien was still alive and Private was unharmed. Oddly enough, Skipper wished the same.

"I hope he'll wake up soon," said Maelie suddenly, breaking Skipper's thought. She gestured to Private. Skipper only nodded. "Hey Skipper..."

"What is it?"

"Do you hate me for what I've done?"  
Skipper glanced at the lemur, who seemed to be very serious. "No."

"You're very forgiving," Maelie said, making Skipper arch a brow.

"Don't get used to it, ringtail." returned Skipper, making Maelie smile slightly.

The two then continued to sit on the windowsill in the dark of the night. The air seemed to have a lighter feel now, however. All of his questions had been answered, and the void inside of him seemed to be filled. He no was no longer longing for something that seemed out of his reach... no longer confused, angry or scared.

The penguin felt a slight smile pull at the corner of his beak; the future looked promising. He thought again about how the zoo would no longer be the same without Julien, or Maurice for that matter, but he knew that they would manage to move on. He felt at peace with what had happened over the last week.

He remembered watching Rico storm out of the holding pen they were being held in earlier that day. He had really used Rico to satisfy his nerves... something that he would make sure to never do again. The leader penguin couldn't stand to see hatred from one of his team towards him. The experience had been enough to chisel him to his core and he had begged Rico for forgiveness.

He remembered the feelings he had experienced when he saw Julien's empty eyes. He had experienced them again when he saw Private's... something he wasn't quite sure how to explain. He thought he had disliked Julien ever since he had first come to the zoo, but now he realized that Julien had been a friend to him. He was devastated by Julien's loss almost the same as when he thought he had lost Private.

He hadn't lost Private though. Private was going to recover from his wounds and the team would return to their missions in no time. He knew Private would have limitations and wouldn't be able to do anything close to what he had been able to... but at least he was alive. His bones would never fully heal and his chest would be scarred for the rest of his life... but at least he was alive. Skipper was happy about that.

Several more hours passed and Skipper could start to feel the exhaustion pulling at his eye lids. The sun began to rise behind him, filling the room and the surrounding area with dull gray morning light. Skipper turned to the sun and took it in, allowing it to warm not only his feathers but his soul.

He was finally at peace.

**The End**

**AN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AN**

Well that's my story. First off, please review for me! It would be great to hear what you liked and didn't like about my story! This is actually my first fanfiction I've ever written all the way through, so i'd love to know what I can improve upon.

It's been a great pleasure writing this story. In the five weeks it took to write it, I have recieved 2,000 hits, nearly 60 reviews and 15 favorites. Thanks to everyone for taking such a big intrest! Also hoping you guys enjoyed reading.

**About my OC:** I didn't really put any time into developing my character. I kinda picked the first name that sounded cool to me and thought up her apperance in the space of five minutes. In my opinion she turned out to be a great character with a mysterious background, though!

**About the Storyline: **When I started writing my story I wasn't really sure where I wanted to take it. I had a basic idea but I didn't know how the characters would change and what not. My first idea was to have Maelie kill Julien, but that would make the story too predictable. At the last moment I decided to add a twist with Maurice, who i wasn't planning on including very much. I like how it turned out though, but that's why most of Maurice's character is in the last few chapters.

The story focuses mostly on Skipper as I felt it would be easiest to write if I focused on the leader of the group. I tried to include all the penguins, but it seems that Kowalski got left out and is mostly a flat character throughout =(. Rico is also semi flat, but at least he had some conflict.

I tried to keep the story focused around Skipper but I had to change characters from time to time for effect (Private defending Maelie for example)So I hope that didn't confuse anyone.

Thanks again for reading :). I should have another Penguins story posted soon, but I'm going to put more work into it so just keep checking back.


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